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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29550276">BeliEVAh</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/00zau/pseuds/00zau'>00zau</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2013-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2018-09-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:21:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,995</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29550276</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/00zau/pseuds/00zau</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>During the fight with the Third Angel, Shinji calls for help... and receives it from an unlikely trio in and even more unlikely situation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Unit 01 rocketed to the surface, accelerating the whole way, before it screamed to a halt as it reached the surface, temporarily drowning out the screams of the terrified pilot. Despite the braking, the robot still slammed into the end of the track at the end of its run, shaking the ground.</p><p>Misato ordered the last locks released on the massive humanoid, then shouted “Evangelion Unit 01, move out!”</p><p>Nothing happened. After a few moments of awkward silence, Misato spoke again; “Alright, Shinji, let’s just focus on moving the Eva first, ‘kay?”</p><p>“How?”</p><p>“It’s just like controlling your own body; you just have to focus more on it. Just put one foot in front of the other,” Ritsuko cut in.</p><p>Shinji focused on moving the right leg forward, trying to ignore the Angel nearby. He was amazed when the massive leg actually began to move. Unfortunately, he was so amazed that he couldn’t believe it was actually happening. The leg stopped moving just as the Eva began to shift its weight to fall on the leg, causing the Eva to fall flat on its face.</p><p>Before Shinji could try to right the massive construct, the Angel reached down and grabbed the Eva by the head. Casually lifting the robot into the air with one hand, the Angel grabbed the Evas left arm and pulled, trying to tear the Eva apart. The Angel’s muscles bulged several times their original size, aiding its efforts. Shinji screamed in pain, grasping his left arm with his right as the Eva’s pain fed back, preventing him from making any move to defend. The bridge crew shouted encouragements, but he couldn’t break through the pain to hear what they were saying.</p><p>With a snap like a felled tree, the Eva’s wrist broke, redoubling Shinji’s pain. The Angel released his arm, then grabbed his, the Eva’s, head. A part of its arm wound up like a battering ram, and then slammed into the mecha’s head. The pain in his arm was forgotten next to the newer, greater pain in his head as he grasped his head with both hands. After several strikes, the Eva was sent flying back into a building, trailing a severed power cord which had snapped under the tension.</p><p>Shinji couldn’t move. He could barely even think. His mind just cried for someone, anyone, to save him.</p><p>…</p><p>In another land, another battle reached its conclusion. With a ripping whir like a disintegrating turbine, two mechas blasted out of the ground. Despite their different sizes, it was the smaller one that remained stable in flight, with the larger dog faced mecha shedding debris as it spun on the end of the massive drill protruding from the arm of the other.</p><p>With a final burst of power, the drill sped up slightly, and the spinning, dog-faced mecha shattered fully. As the chunks of vaguely recognizable metal fell away, the intact robot continued upwards. The hatch on top of the head/body opened, releasing its three occupants from the cramped confines.</p><p>They gazed in wonder at the panorama around them. It was the first time two of them had ever seen the surface, and even for the third it was the first time from such a height. The sunset turned the scorched earth into a tapestry of dark purples and oranges.</p><p>As they finished drinking in the view, though, they noticed something else; their hair had stopped streaming downward. Their ride had reached its peak, and as it slowly began to return to the</p><p>As Lagann fell and the ground grew larger below, Simon, Kamina, and Yoko desperately wished they could be somewhere, anywhere, else.</p><p>…</p><p>With a flash of light, alarms blared on the bridge as an unidentified object appeared several hundred feet in the air. As it fell, some of the many cameras around Tokyo 3 focused on it, revealing it to be a small humanoid mechanical figure, painted red. It fell straight toward the Angel and sprouted a drill, seemingly from nowhere, just before it reached the monster. Amazingly, the tiny robot managed to accomplish what almost nothing in humanities arsenal had; it penetrated the arm of the Angel seemingly effortlessly, drawing a scream of rage that sounded as if it should have rent concrete and steel as easily as it did the air.</p><p>The enraged Angel batted the robot away with its good arm, but the pause gave the semi-conscious Shinji enough time to stand up. Barely aware of what he was doing, or how he was managing to run when he couldn’t even walk before, he made the Eva charge at its opponent. A yellow hexagonal barrier sprung into existence between the combatants. Stymied, the Eva howled, the locks on its jaw shattering.</p><p>The bridge crew panicked, shouting something about the Eva going berserk, but Shinji couldn’t hear them. The Eva reached out, its hands slowly penetrating the field, moving like a spoon through molasses. Once both hands were through the center of the field, the construct began to inexorably pull them apart. Somehow, the robot managed to rip through the intangible field, reaching the creature behind it. Tackling the Angel, the Eva began pounding on the ruby core in its chest with its massive fists, shaking the ground beneath them with the savage blows. After several blows, cracks ran through the sphere. With another titanic punch, it shattered. In an instant, the Angel seemed to liquefy, its entire mass flowing up and around the Eva before the Angel. For a moment, it seemed as though the Angel would absorb the Evangelion, but then the creature rapidly expanded to several times its original size, before exploding in a blast of similar might to the N2 mine dropped on it earlier.</p><p>As soon as the Angel was gone, the Evangelion, which appeared mostly unharmed, fell over backwards with a crash, both the pilot and the internal batteries exhausted.</p><p>“Begin recovery of the Eva and start preliminary assessments for repairs cost and timetable,” Misato ordered, “and get that unidentified object so we can try and figure out what it is, how it got here, and how it managed to hurt an Angel.”</p><p>…</p><p>Shinji was unconscious when they pulled the entry plug out of Unit 01, but he recovered within minutes. He insisted that he didn’t need to go to the hospital, and since there were no physical injuries, succeeded. Thus, he tagged along with Misato to the location of the object which had helped save his life.</p><p>The object could be clearly seen, though it was half embedded in the side of a building. It appeared to be a small humanoid robot with a face on its chest instead of having a head.</p><p>As Misato, Shinji and a group of NERV security officers approached, they heard the sound of crying. Rushing in, they found a trio of teenagers trying to pull the robot off the legs of a small girl who must have been in the building when the robot crashed into it.</p><p>“What are you kids doing out of a shelter?!” Misato cried.</p><p>“What? Shelter? Just help of get this thing off!” the youngest looking of the teens shouted back, distraught.</p><p>“Outta the way!” Misato ordered frantically, as several of the NERV officers take the trio’s places, though the taller of the two boys refused to budge. The other two teens moved, allowing two officers to take their places, and the taller boy and two officers together managed to heave the robot over, while Misato paged an ambulance. As they did, she saw that the top of the robot was open, revealing a cockpit.</p><p>The ambulance arrived in a squall of tire smoke, and both Shinji and Misato noticed the other teens staring as the girl was efficiently loaded into the ambulance, which peeled away almost as quickly as it had arrived.</p><p>As soon as the ambulance was out of sight, Misato whirled on the trio of unknowns, finally having time to appraise them. Taking note of their outlandish outfits, she took a second glance at the cockpit revealed when the machine was shifted. As she examined them, they introduced themselves somewhat sheepishly.</p><p>“You three were in that robot, weren’t you?” Misato stated, hardly bothering to make it a question.</p><p>The three chorused assents. Misato continued her impromptu interrogation, “Since you don’t know where you are or how you got here, can you tell me where you’re from?”</p><p>The three quickly and messily spilled their story. Several times, Yoko interrupted to clarify something that Kamina exaggerated, or Simon stammered out several self-deprecating refusals of Kamina’s praise, while Kamina would interject over both of their explanations to add how epic their contributions had been. Misato stared in seeming disbelief, before shaking her head and attempting a sage nod. She then asked if they knew how to get back.</p><p>“No clue,” they chorused, then Yoko continued, slightly worried, “my village it probably missing me right now, and so is Giha village with Simon and Kamina” to which Kamina snorted drily.</p><p>Simon chipped in, saying “Maybe we need to be back in Lagann to go back, sorta need to be in the same place we came in to leave?”</p><p>Kamina slapped Simon on the back, nearly bowling him over, “That sounds like a plan!”</p><p>The three squeezed into the open cockpit of the mecha, which was obviously too small for 3 young adults. In fact, it looked like they shouldn’t have been able to fit at all.</p><p>“Hey! Watch where you put your hands, buddy.”</p><p>“Like I’d want to touch you anyway, pit-chick.”</p><p>Once they got themselves situated, Simon pulled out his drill, and inserted it into the hole in the middle of the console. Concentrating, he turned the key… and nothing happened. Lagann did not respond in any way to its pilot.</p><p>Disappointed, the teens climbed back out of the mecha. Simon informed Misato, “it won’t activate for some reason.”</p><p>Misato nodded, before whipping out her cellphone and calling a number on speed-dial, “Hey, Rits, I need a favor…”</p><p>After describing the situation, she asked, “By the way, can you get me keys to one of the open apartments next door to mine? I’d love to have all four of these kids stay with me, but I don’t have enough room in my flat alone,right? I figure I’ll have the boys stay next door while Yoko stays with me. Sound good?”</p><p>Ritsuko’s sigh was audible even to the not-quite-eavesdropping children, “We can’t have three unknown, unvetted civilians living with the Third Child,” she explained, “we know nothing about them, and from what you’ve told me, we’re unlikely to be able to find out any more. They could be dangerous.”</p><p>Misato was insistent, “They’re just kids. I think it might be useful for Shinji to have some kids his age around anyway. And with them staying with me, Shinji’s security detail and I can keep an eye on them. It’ll only be temporary, since they’re trying to figure out how to get home, anyway. Also, you can take a look at their coool little robot, try and figure out what makes it tick, get your hands greasy, all that fun stuff,” she finished in a cajoling sing-song.</p><p>Whether because Misato had hit the mark with the opportunity to play with another robot, or because she was tired of arguing, Ritsuko agreed to Misato’s proposal. Details were hashed out, and in short order a NERV officer handed over a packet to her. Turning back to the teens, Misato explained, “Now that’s taken care of. You guys will be staying with me for now. You three,” she said, indicating the boys, “will share the apartment next to mine for now, while Yoko will stay with me. Since your ‘Lagann’ won’t turn on, my friends here,” she gestured at the ever-growing battalion of NERV men swarming over the site of the battle, “are going to haul it off and try to figure out what makes it tick. We’ll have you on your way home in no time!”</p><p>Misato commandeered a NERV SUV, since her personal car wasn’t big enough. Despite the fact that it wasn’t her car, or perhaps because of it, her near-suicidal driving didn’t improve at all. While Shinji held on for dear life, an unphased Kamina turned to him and asked, “so, you’re the pilot of that purple robot back there, eh?”</p><p>Shinji gave a meek, “y-yeah, I guess.”</p><p>“Bad. Ass. How’d you score a ride like that?”</p><p>As Shinji explained the recent events to the other three teens, Kamina gazed speculatively between him and Simon next to him. As Shinji neared the end of his quiet recounting, Kamina’s face changed from an out of place ponderous look to a more natural one of jovial determination and he slammed his hand down on Shinji’s shoulder, causing him to jump a little.</p><p>“You should join Team Gurren!” Kamina stated, drawing some irksome looks from the adults in the front of the van for his loudness.</p><p>“What?” Shinji asked.</p><p>“Team Gurren!” Kamina repeated, louder.</p><p>“What is that?” Shinji asked, also louder.</p><p>“What! You haven’t heard of us? The reputation of Team Gurren echoes far and wide! Though I guess it can’t be helped, since you’re from a different world or whatever.”</p><p>“Who all’s in this team then?” Shinji asked.</p><p>“J-just me, Kamina, and Boota” Simon started.</p><p>“And now you!” Kamina cut in, pointing at Shinji.</p><p>“But I didn’t-“ Shinji tried to deny, “and who is Boota?”</p><p>Kamina jerked a thumb at Yoko, and then Shinji tried not to stare as her chest began to move without any apparent reason. Then, a small, furry blob popped out from her cleavage.</p><p>Simon, also trying not to stare, gave a stunned, “how could you tell where…” as Kamina gave a knowing grin, earning a glare from Yoko.</p><p>Boota quickly scurried across the van and up Simon’s arm, to sit on his shoulder. Interruption over, Kamina turned back to Shinji, “Great! Welcome to Team Gurren,” continuing to ignore Shinji’s attempt to protest that he hadn’t actually agreed to join.</p><p>The van finally arrived at the apartment complex, and the five got out. Climbing the exterior staircase, Kamina stared curiously at the floor signs until Misato announced “Here’s our floor.”</p><p>Kamina promptly asked, “How can you tell? They all look the same.”</p><p>Misato pointed at the sign, “Read the sign. I know what floor my room is on.”</p><p>Once again, Kamina looked at the sign, tilting his head in confusion. “You can’t read, can you?” Misato asked, exasperated.</p><p>A response of “Read?” from Kamina answered her question. Yoko face-palmed.</p><p>Misato took note of Yoko’s reaction, and so turned to Simon, asking “What about you?”</p><p>Simon replied “N-no.”</p><p>Misato continued, “Well, I guess we can start taking care of that in the morning. For now, these are our suites. This one is mine, which Yoko will be sharing with me,” she said, stopping at a door, “and the next one down is y’all’s. Here’s the key-card,” she finished, fishing said card out of her pocket, “and here’s a couple flashlights, since the power is out after the attack.”</p><p>The three boys continued along. When they reached the door Kamina grabbed the handle and yanked. When the door didn’t open he promptly straightened, lifted his right foot, and leaned into a slam that put most of his weight through that foot into the door just beside the handle. Unfortunately for him, the door, heavy steel in a concrete frame, refused to budge, leaving him nursing a stinging foot.</p><p>“What was that for?” asked Shinji, as he stepped past Kamina and swiped the key reader, entering the apartment.</p><p>“The door didn’t open. Duh.”</p><p>“Well, that usually only works in movies,” Shinji said, then continued, “They’re stories that you watch on a screen,” at Simon and Kamina’s quizzical looks. As the three entered the apartment, Shinji tried to flip the lights on, then remembered to hand out the flashlights Misato had given them. They all went through and looked at the rooms. There were three rooms, two of which were the same size, and one slightly larger. Kamina stood in front of the largest and announced, “We’ll take this one.”</p><p>Shinji noticed that he’d been dumbfounded for the umpteenth time that night. “There’s a room for each of us.”</p><p>“Really? Guess there’s plenty of room on the surface. Simon, you can have this one, I’ll take the one by the door,” Kamina replied without a second thought.</p><p>“Shouldn’t you have the larger one, bro?” Simon spoke up hesitantly.</p><p>“Nah, I’m good. You guys did all the hard work, so one of you deserves it,” Kamina explained.</p><p>“But I didn’t really do anything” Shinji and Simon said at the same time.</p><p>Kamina grinned, “Hey! Don’t try to belittle what you’ve both done today! This is only the beginning; I know you’ll both do far more before it’s over.”</p><p>As Kamina continued to expound on their exploits, an embarrassed Shinji turned to Simon, “Is he always like this?”</p><p>Simon managed to combine both a sheepish and admiring expression on his face. “Yeah, bro is so cool. I wish I could be like him, but I can’t help but be scared, you know? Kamina just isn’t scared, ever.”</p><p>Shinji thought for a moment, then said, “I feel the same way sometimes. I keep telling myself ‘I mustn’t run away,’ but I still want to, but I wish I could just not run away.”</p><p>Exhausted after a long day, the three went to bed, knowing that this was only the end of the beginning.</p><p>…</p><p>Gendo Ikari sat at the end of a long, black table in an equally black room, hands clasped in front of his mouth. Slowly, the room began to light up as several hologram projectors activated, revealing that the room was even decorated, if one could even call it that, in black. The designers had obviously built the room with intimidation in mind, though who it was meant to intimidate, and who was meant to do the intimidating remained to be seen. The holograms displayed the countenances of five elderly men, and a number of black obelisks lit up as well, representing men wishing to keep their identities secret, either as a card to be played at a later date, or not at all.</p><p>The man at the other head of the table, equipped with several prosthetics, including a visor across his eyes, could be identified as the leader of the other men by his mere posture. He and Gendo stared impassively at each other across the table. The two men sat silently for several minutes, a motionless struggle for dominance playing in the air between them. Who would be the first to speak, thus ceding control of the conversation to the other?</p><p>Finally, the visored man spoke. “I tire of this waiting. I have other matters to attend to,” he began, attempting to salvage some control, despite having been the first to talk, “Gendo Ikari, you have failed us. Things in Tokyo-3 are not going as predicted in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Reports indicate a trio of children, who seemed to appear from another world, interrupted the fight with the Third Angel, and are now living with the Third Child. How have you let this occur?”</p><p>Smirking behind his hands, Gendo responded, “This is only a minor setback. Ritsuko Akagi and more of our finest engineers and scientists are as we speak working on returning these children from whence they came.”</p><p>Another of the men spoke up, “Why not simply eliminate them?”</p><p>“Misato Katsuragi was on the scene at the time, and took them into her care before we could intervene. At this time, eliminating the newcomers would arouse suspicion and make her more difficult to control. Rest assured, I will take care of them if they prove a hindrance, but at this time it serves our goals better not to.”</p><p>The leader spoke again, “Very well. Dismissed.”</p><p>One by one, the monoliths fell silent, and the four other holograms dissipated, leaving only Gendo and the cybernetically enhanced man.</p><p>“Gendo Ikari.”</p><p>“Lorenz Kihl,” Gendo responded with the same tone.</p><p>“SEELE will be paying attention most closely now that events are proceeding.”</p><p>“I expect nothing less.” With that, Gendo stood from his chair and without any further acknowledgement of his nominal superior, turned and strode briskly from the room.</p><p>…</p><p>Author's Note: Reposted from fanfiction.net. The rest of the extant chapters will be added here as well.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next day, the Simon and Shinji awoke to a loud rumbling sound. Tumbling out the door to his room, Shinji discovered that Kamina, or more precisely his stomach, was the source of the sound.</p><p>Kamina moaned, barely moving from where he lay on the floor, “there’s no food here.”</p><p>“Really? I guess we’ll have to go over to Misato’s…” Shinji trailed off.</p><p>“What are we waiting for? Let’s gooo,” Kamina urged, grabbing Shinji and a groggy Simon (who had just blearily staggered out of his own room) and dragged them out the front door. Stopping in front of Misato’s apartment, Kamina stared at the door for a few seconds. He lifted his foot slightly, stopped, and tried turning the handle. When that failed to open the door, Shinji stepped in and knocked hesitantly on the door.</p><p>Misato quickly opened the door, “Come on in. I’m guessing you want food?”</p><p>“How could you tell?” Simon asked, at the same time that Kamina exclaimed, “Of course!”</p><p>“First off, you’re all teenage boys. Second off, I’m pretty sure that tummy rumble registered on the Richter Scale. Once Yoko’s done, we can all eat.”</p><p>Simon asked, “Where is Yoko, anyway?”</p><p>Misato jerked a thumb towards a door, behind which running water could be heard, “Shower; she just got in, so it’ll probably be a few minutes.”</p><p>Just then, there was a yell from inside the bathroom. The door was flung open, revealing the steam-filled interior of the bathroom, and a small black and white bird was flung unceremoniously into the kitchen, skidding several feet on the tiled floor before coming to a stop against the counter with a thump.</p><p>“Oh, so that’s where Pen-Pen got off to,” Misato observed mildly, as the penguin got up and attempted to maintain some dignity as it waddled over to a second fridge and climbed in.</p><p>Kamina’s “Now what was that you said about some grub?”</p><p>“Well, I guess we can go ahead and start cooking, that way it’ll be done by the time Yoko is out of the shower.”</p><p>A few minutes later, Shinji commented, “Does this really count as cooking? You’re just microwaving a bunch of instant meals.”</p><p>“Oh, hush. I’d like to see you do better,” retorted Misato.</p><p>“Who cares how it’s made; it smells great!” came from Kamina, as he watched the plastic dishes slowly rotated on the microwaves turntable. The smells wafted teasingly out each time Misato opened the door to stir or switch meals.</p><p>Just as they were putting the plastic trays onto the table, the bathroom door opened again. Yoko walked out carefully, mindful to keep the towel wrapped around her chest in place. Seeing the three boys, she started to turn and retreat, but stopped and continued forward after she smelled the food on the table. Sidling up to the table, she sat down and grabbed a meal. Pulling her damp hair back over her shoulder, she managed to both preen slightly and look indignant as the boys tried in vain not to stare.</p><p>The group dug into the meals with varying levels of gusto. Simon and Kamina seemingly inhaled theirs, with Kamina exclaiming between mouthfuls (and often during them as well) as to the flavor of the food. Yoko was only slightly less enthusiastic, obviously impressed with the food as well, but with better manners. Misato, after adding a copious amount of chili sauce, also scarfed her food down. Shinji was left the only one not happy with the food, picking at it some before slowly choking it down with several glasses of water.</p><p>Misato, noticing Shinji’s displeasure, said, “What’s so bad about instant food? I live off this stuff, you know.”</p><p>Shinji responded “I-it’s just not as good as real food. If there was anything but beer and junk food here, maybe I could make something.”</p><p>“Oh really? In that case, we can buy some groceries while we’re out today so you can show us what you’ve got.”</p><p>“What else are we going out for?” Shinji asked.</p><p>“Shopping! These three can’t go out dressed like this all the time, and they need more than one set of clothes anyway. You could probably use some more clothes as well, mister just-brought-one-suitcase.”</p><p>“Hey, what’s wrong with our clothes!?” Kamina asked indignantly.</p><p>“Well, none of you have shirts, for starters.”</p><p>“And what’s wrong with that? It’s not like its cold, and real men don’t need all those heavy clothes!”</p><p>“Well, we’re trying to keep a low profile, and having y’all running around in those get-ups isn’t exactly going to do that.”</p><p>“Who cares about that? We don’t need to stay hidden. Team Gurren never retreats!”</p><p>“Whatever. You can stay inside the apartment until we figure out how to send y’all home, then.”</p><p>“Hey, hey, hey, hey! I ain’t spending that much time cooped up around here. Geeze, all you surface chicks are so pushy.”</p><p>Simon finally said something, speaking softly to Kamina, “Bro, maybe we should actually listen to her for once. We probably can’t get much food if we can’t leave. And did you see what everyone was wearing last night? I bet we could find something cool to wear.”</p><p>Kamina sighed, “Oh all right. You win this time. Now, since we’re done eating, let’s get a move on it!”</p><p>“Hey, some of us aren’t done eating yet, you bottomless pit,” Yoko pointed out indignantly.</p><p>Misato cut off Kamina as he started to retort, “Yoko’s right, we all need to finish eating before we leave. And anyway, at least for now you three need to borrow some shirts so we can go out in public. Simon can borrow one of Shinji’s,” she paused, turning to Shinji, “your suitcase got here this morning, by the way,” then turned back, “Yoko can borrow one of mine, and I just so happen to have a couple shirts lying around that I think will fit you, Kamina.”</p><p>…</p><p>A few minutes later, Yoko and Misato came out of Misato’s room. Yoko was wearing a plain black t-shirt that was obviously too large for her, making it quite baggy.</p><p>Kamina appeared unimpressed and needled “Take away the skin, and you don’t have anything left, do yah?”</p><p>Yoko sputtered indignantly in response, followed by Misato pointing out, “You aren’t much to look at in that baggy shirt either, Kamina.” And indeed, the way the shirt hung loosely on his frame hid the toned body underneath, making him appear merely scrawny.</p><p>“That’s why I don’t need a shirt!” Kamina exclaimed, reaching for the buttons.</p><p>“Not this again,” Shinji complained in the background, “Let’s just get this over with already.”</p><p>Misato and Simon chorused agreement. The party was about to leave when Kamina suddenly spin in place, then spoke again, “Hey! Were’d my sword get off to?”</p><p>Yoko sighed and replied, “We left your sword and my gun in Lagann last night, so it’s probably wherever they took Lagann.”</p><p>“Correct. We’ll see about picking them up later today. We need to go by HQ anyway to get Shinji fitted for a plug-suit,” Misato added, “not that you really ought to be carrying those around in public.”</p><p>The group finally got moving, forestalling another argument. Misato led them to the elevators since the power was back up. Kamina barely managed to hide his surprise when the ‘room’ started moving after they got in. Reaching the ground floor, they walked out to be confronted by a large black SUV. Misato pulled a set of keys out of her pocket, “I’d like to keep using my Renault, but it’s in the shop, and it can’t really seat five anyway, so I got NERV to lend me a larger car.”</p><p>They piled into the car, Kamina taking the passenger seat, Yoko and Simon taking the middle, and Shinji volunteering to the back seat. As they drove off, Kamina closely observed Misato’s driving. “Hey, let me drive on the way back.”</p><p>“Sorry kiddo, you’ve got to have a license first. And you have to learn how before you can get one. Actually, since you’re older than the other two, we might be able to arrange that if you’re around here long enough. That work?”</p><p>Kamina wasn’t happy with that, and they started bickering back and forth for a while about it, to which Yoko rolled her eyes.</p><p>Meanwhile, in the back, Shinji noticed Simon staring out the windows, head darting around to take it all in. Unsure what to say, he ventured, “It’s a beautiful day isn’t it?”</p><p>Simon replied, “I’ve never seen a day before. We were only on the surface for a minute before we ended up here, and it was night here. But yeah, the surface looks amazing! All these huge buildings! There must be thousands of people here. All of Giha village could probably fit in one of those big tall boxy ones.”</p><p>Shinji supplied, “Those are called sky-scrapers. And this isn’t even the only city in the world. There are around three billion people in the world.”</p><p>Kamina, listening in, cut in, “Sky-scrapers, you say? That sounds pretty badass. Once we get home and defeat the Gunmen, we should build cities just like this one. Except when we do it, we’ll make them even bigger, so that they will pierce the sky!”</p><p>“Yeah, bro, I hope our world can be as great as this one someday.”</p><p>Kamina stated, “It will be, and we’ll be the ones to put it there!”</p><p>Shinji spoke to Simon again, “You know, our world isn’t that great right now either. Half the people died 15 years ago, and the environment is in pretty bad shape as well.”</p><p>Simon replied, “If you say so. It’s still a lot better than ours.”</p><p>Yoko piped up, “Yeah, there really isn’t much to see on the surface, it’s all a big desert from what I’ve seen.”</p><p>“Here we are!” Misato announced, pulling into the parking lot of a store.</p><p>“Goodwill?” Shinji asked, reading the sign above the building.</p><p>“What’s that?” asked Yoko.</p><p>“’S the name the store. They sell used clothes,” Shinji replied.</p><p>“And I’m taking y’all here because I can’t afford new clothes for all of you, before you ask,” Misato added.</p><p>After parking the car, they trooped into the store. Misato sent the boys off to one side, taking Yoko with her to the girls’ clothing section.</p><p>“You know, you can still get the boy’s attention without having to give it all away with that bikini top,” Misato advised, “Let me help you pick some good stuff out.”</p><p>…</p><p>The three young men looked through the aisles of the store, trying to find clothes in their sizes. Kamina passed over many ordinary shirts, occasionally complaining about how boring all the clothes were, before stopping short. “Perfect.”</p><p>He pulled a shirt off of the hanger. It was a short sleeve, button up shirt, medium blue with loud red, orange and yellow print on it. After stripping the t-shirt he was wearing off, he flung the new shirt over his back, sticking his arms through the sleeves on the way. Leaving it unbuttoned, he turned to the other two, “Awesome, right?”</p><p>“Umm, I think the point of getting shirts was to cover our chests, bro,” Simon noted.</p><p>“If you wear another shirt underneath it it’d be alright, wouldn’t it? It looks pretty cool,” Shinji added.</p><p>“Aight. Now let’s get something better on you two,” Kamina said, after grabbing a more fitting T-shirt off a rack and putting it on under the other shirt</p><p>“But my clothes are fiiinnneee,” Shinji moaned as Kamina dragged them both back into the aisles.</p><p>“Here we go,” Kamina exclaimed, pulling a jacket down after a short time searching. It almost seemed to be made out of grey panels, with darker grey underneath connecting the segments, such as at the shoulders, at the elbows, between the upper and lower halves of the torso. A thick metal zipper closed the front. He threw it to Shinji, who put it on over his white shirt.</p><p>“Great. Now, if only you had some shades to go with it…”</p><p>“Umm…a-actually I do have a pair I found a couple days ago,” Shinji said, pulling the metallic case out of his breast pocket. Pulling the odd spectacles from the case, he put them on, then turned to look in a mirror.</p><p>“Dayum, bro, that looks suits you. You can get away with those white shirts as long as you get this to go with them.”</p><p>“Yeah, Shinji, that looks pretty cool,” Simon added.</p><p>“I guess I’ll get it then,” Shinji said, “but what about you, Simon? You still need to get some shirts, and both of you ought to get some more normal pants.”</p><p>“See anything you like, Simon?” Kamina asked as they wandered down the aisles.</p><p>“N-not yet.”</p><p>“Hey, do you like this?” Shinji asked, snagging a blue jacket with red trim off the wall and showing it to the others.</p><p>“Ho-oo, that’s perfect for you, Simon,” Kamina burst, “I think blue and red are your colors.”</p><p>Simon tried the jacket on, finding it a fine fit. Kamina reached out and tugged Simons goggled down around his neck instead of on top of his head, then declared it perfect again.</p><p>After picking up a couple more shirts to wear under Simon’s jacket and Kamina’s Hawaiian shirt, as well as some new pants (mostly cargo pants), Kamina declared, “Alright! We’re done, let’s go see what’s taking the girls so long.”</p><p>They walked over to the other side of the store, through an aisle, turned the corner, and stopped dead in their tracks.</p><p>“See, Yoko, I told you this one was good,” Misato said, winking before turned back to the boys, “y’all trying to catch flies?”</p><p>The three managed to scrape their jaws off the floor, but found it hard to take their eyes off of Yoko. She was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, buttoned down from below her neck to just below her ribs, and the shirt clung tightly to her chest. As she moved, her stomach could still be glimpsed occasionally. She also wore a narrow black skirt that ended just above the knees. Combined with her boots and the shoulder loops on the shirt, and a soft white hat with a hard black brim, it gave a somewhat martial air.</p><p>“You were right, Misato. But it’s still impractical. I can’t move in this!” Yoko said.</p><p>“And that’s what the other outfits are for. Come on, let’s get moving before the drool floods the store.”</p><p>Turning to the boys, Misato examined their choices before smirking, sighing and turning toward the front of the store, “Whatever. I ain’t gonna tell y’all how to dress. Let’s go.”</p><p>They made their way to the front of the store, checked out, and left. Misato drove towards NERV HQ, while pointing out a few local landmarks. They reached the entrance to the Geofront and drove in.</p><p>“Aw man, we’re going underground again? Laaame,” Kamina complained.</p><p>“Oh, hush. I think you’ll find this a lot more impressive than a mere underground village,” Misato retorted.</p><p>After a short wait, a car-train arrived, and Misato let off the clutch and rolled forward onto it before it continued down into the dark tunnel. After a short while, they broke out into a near-day level of light. The three foreigners stared at the huge cavern, filled with sunlight, with plants and trees growing at the bottom. “Welcome to the NERV Geofront.” Misato grinned. “I told you it was better than what you’re used to underground.”</p><p>As they continued down, even Shinji took some more time to look around in wonder again, as he’d been somewhat preoccupied the only other time he’d been down there. Despite being under-ground, the huge volume of the cavern was enough that faint clouds formed in places. Combined with the large distance, the caves walls were hard to make out, giving an ethereal quality to the Geofront.</p><p>Upon reaching the bottom, Misato once again put the car in gear and rolled off onto the platform and parked. The group disembarked, then following her into one of the buildings at the bottom. Once inside, Shinji pre-empted Misato by handing her a map pulled from a holder on the wall. Muttering something about ‘too smart for their own good,’ Misato led them down to the cages. There, they saw several techs, along with Ritsuko, waving various sensors over Lagann, which was sitting within one of the empty cages, dwarfed by the enormous space meant to hold a 200 foot tall Evangelion, not a mecha less than 6 feet tall.</p><p>Misato swiftly walked over to them, forcing Simon to skip once or twice to keep up. Once they were closer, Misato inquired, “So, what’ve y’all got so far?”</p><p>“Well, the mech doesn’t appear to have any power source, which is probably why it won’t turn on. I’m surprised it ever worked at all, since there doesn’t appear to be any means of supplying external power either,” Ritsuko replied.</p><p>“Hmm. Then how did it work?”</p><p>“Well, I’m guessing it has some means of passive energy collection that we haven’t managed to identify yet. There’s definitely some kind of energy readout, but it doesn’t seem to measure any kind of reserve“ Ritsuko trailed off, glancing meaningfully back at the techs, then at Simon, Yoko and Kamina, “this ‘Lagann’ must have had enough to run for a minute or so on residual power after ending up here. We’ll keep trying, but unless something changes Lagann is just a chunk of metal for now.”</p><p>While they talked, Kamina sauntered over to where a sword and gun were leaned against the wall. He grabbed the gun and threw it butt first to Yoko, shouting to grab her attention, before spinning the sword over his arm and onto the back of his neck, where he slung his arms over it.</p><p>“Hey, careful with that, you dolt! It could go off if you throw it around like that,” Yoko shouted back.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”</p><p>Noticing this going on, Misato finished her conversation with Ritsuko, then strolled over to them, “Yoko’s right, Kamina. Guns are not toys. Have you ever even used a gun before?”</p><p>“Hey, don’t look down on me! Who the hell do you think I am?”</p><p>“I’ll take that as a no,” Misato said under her breath, before continuing, “Alrighty then, Shinji, be a dear and go with Ritsuko please, we need to get you fitted for a plugsuit, that’s one of the main reasons we came here after all. I’m going to take these three down to the range and give them the basic gun safety course. I’m pretty sure Yoko will be fine, but I’ve got to get her checked out as well before we let her carry that thing around.”</p><p>“Okay,” Shinji sighed, watching his new friends walk away.</p><p>…</p><p>Reaching the gun range, Misato checked out a handgun, led Kamina over to a booth, and handed the gun over to him, “Alright big shot, show me what you know.”</p><p>Kamina promptly picked the gun up, holding it backwards, with the barrel facing towards him from under his fist, “Okay, now what?”</p><p>Misato snatched the gun away from Kamina so quickly it seemed simply appear in her hand. “Well, first off, try not killing yourself! You’ve got the business end pointed towards you. Seriously, if you don’t know something, ask.” Misato was dead serious now. “You could have hurt or killed yourself playing around with a gun if I hadn’t given you an unloaded gun.”</p><p>Misato demonstrated how to properly hold it, how the safety works, and so on. Next she went to get some ammunition for the gun, stopping in front of Yoko and Simon, who were standing around, “Would you like me to check out a couple guns for you? I know you already have that rifle, Yoko, but I bet you don’t have much ammo here, do you?”</p><p>“Umm, I don’t know how to use a gun either, Misato,” Simon stated.</p><p>“Don’t worry, I can teach you as well. Yoko, can I trust you to keep an eye on Kamina?”</p><p>“I guess so.”</p><p>Misato obtained a pair of rifles and some ammunition, handing one rifle and most of the ammo to Yoko, and taking Simon with the other rifle and the rest to a different booth. As Misato began instructing Simon, Yoko began making single, precise shots at one of the targets downrange. Everyone cringed as they heard a burst of louder gunfire, everyone turning to see Kamina standing, pistol extended, a waft of smoke coming from the end of the barrel, having just fired off a full magazine in a matter of seconds.</p><p>Yoko sighed, and hit the buttons to retrieve both of their targets. Putting them side by side, she pointed out the difference to Kamina, “See here? I fired less shots than you, but I hit the target every time, dead center on the target, though some of that is from using a rifle. You didn’t even bother to aim, and let the kick drag your gun all over, missed most of you shots, and most of the ones that hit weren’t anywhere near the center.”</p><p>After sending out a new pair of targets, she grabbed Kamina’s wrists from behind. Kamina stiffened for a moment as her chest pressed into his back, then relaxed and let her help him aim as he fired off several more shots at a much slower rate than he had before. After going through another magazine, Yoko pulled the second target back in.</p><p>“See? You actually hit most of the shots this time. I think you might actually have some talent at this. Usually people new to guns can’t hit crap with a handgun without a lot of practice. Try another mag on your own, now.”</p><p>After half an hour or so, Misato called them in. “Well, this has been fun, but we’ve got some other things we need to get done while we’re here today. Turn in your guns and come with me.”</p><p>They trooped over to the locker rooms, meeting Shinji there. Shinji was wearing a skin-tight blue, white and black one-piece suit that covered his entire body from the neck down.</p><p>Misato said, “Good, you’re done already. Change back into your normal clothes, then we need to go get all four of you IDs.”</p><p>“Alright. Ritsuko said already having my measurements made it a lot easier to get it ready,” Shinji said before retreating back into the locker room, emerging a minute later wearing his normal attire.</p><p>Following Misato, they reached an office containing several printers and other machines. Misato asked the officer inside, “Got those packets I ordered printed yet?”</p><p>“In the out basket by the door. Sorry, I’m a little busy right now.”</p><p>“No problem, thanks for putting these together for me,” Misato said, grabbing a few manila folders from the indicated basket. She pulled the contents out of one of them, smiled, and put it back in. “Peeerfect.”</p><p>Misato stopped at a bench in front of a set of vending machines, then laid the packets out next to her on the bench. “Okay, I’ve made personnel files for the three of you.” She waved to everyone else but Shinji. “Since we don’t want it widely known that you three are from another world or whatever, we’ve created some backstory. Over the next couple of days you’ll need to familiarize yourselves with them so you can fit in better. First off, though, is names. Since Kamina and Simon here don’t actually have family names, we had to come up with those for you as well. Since Yoko has her village name as hers, we just did the same for you two. You’re know Kamina Giha and Simon Giha. I’ve also got ID cards for all four of you, you’ll need these whenever you come to NERV, so don’t lose them. Since you aren’t official NERV personnel like me or Shinji, they won’t get you in alone, though; you’ll have to be with one of us for them to work.”</p><p>With this, she handed out the ID cards, and they headed back towards the car park. Driving back from the Geofront, the setting sun lit the inside of the car with a rich orange and pink glow. Kamina and Simon were floored.</p><p>“Woa, the sky is on fire out there,” Kamina exclaimed, “And the sun is huge! Is it getting closer to us?”</p><p>“B-bro, I think it was like this last night when we first reached the surface. Maybe it does this every day?”</p><p>“I keep forgetting you two are new to the surface. Yeah, this happens pretty much every day. It’s caused by all sorts of fun atmospheric effects when the sun gets toward the horizon. I can’t really describe it that well. It is really pretty, though, isn’t it?” Misato paused to look at the sunset as well, seeming to see it anew.</p><p>“Misato! Look out,” Shinji yelled from the back of the SUV. Misato looked back at the road, then swerved to avoid an oncoming car. “Can you please keep your eyes on the road?”</p><p>Reaching the apartment safely, Misato motioned for the boys to follow her and Yoko into their apartment. Once they had all trooped in, Misato turned to face them. “In a few days we’re going to be putting you all into school. Since Simon and Yoko are already Shinji’s age, we’re just going to put you all in the same class. The issue comes from the fact that neither of you,” she said, pointing at Kamina and Simon in turn, “can read, which will be rather noticeable. Not knowing your history or other subjects can slide as foreign students, but not being able to read will raise far too many questions. Soooo,” she continues, rubbing her hands together, “we’re going to teach you how to read! Luckily, Yoko and Shinji can read, and they can help me make this somewhat easier.”</p><p>Pulling a whiteboard out of a packed closet, they began.</p><p>…</p><p>Several hours later, Misato dropped into a chair. “Alrighty, that’s enough for one night. Let’s have dinner and split for the night. Shinji?”</p><p>“Yes, Misato.” Shinji walked over to the fridge, opened it, and promptly cringed. “We didn’t get any groceries while we were out.”</p><p>“You should have reminded me,” Misato said, “I guess you’ll have to put up with instant food for a while longer. Not like anyone else here is complaining about it.”</p><p>“Sorry. I guess I’ll start heating some food up, then.”</p><p>As they settled in to eat, Misato faced Yoko. “You know, you did a pretty good job helping me teach today. Thanks for the help.”</p><p>Yoko shrugged. “I had fun. Glad I could help.”</p><p>Kamina turned one of the empty food packages over, staring blankly at the writing on the labels. “Uhg, my head hurts after all this learnin’.”</p><p>Turning to him and Simon, Misato said, “well, I think you both made some good progress tonight. I think Simon especially is a natural learner. But yeah, we’re rushing into this, since we need to get you two reading at a decent level within a week or two. I’m not surprised you feel a bit worn out.”</p><p>…</p><p>Over the few days, the two’s reading skills improved vastly, enough that Misato also had them learn some basic history and science to prepare for their beginning school at the beginning of the next week. On Saturday night Misato pronounced, “Alright, I think you’re as good as your going to get without actually going to school. Tomorrow, we celebrate. Shinji can finally show us his vaunted cooking skills.”</p><p>The cheers of the other three teens, who had already started to tire of the novelty of microwave dinners, drowned out what little protest Shinji tried to make.</p><p>The next day, Shinji was accompanied by Simon as he goes to the store to get the supplies they need for the dinner Shinji planned to make. Shinji was listening to his MP3 player as they walked.</p><p>“What is that you’ve got in your ears, by the way? I’ve seen you with that several times.”</p><p>“Oh, sorry,” Shinji said, taking the earbuds out, “This is an MP3 player. I listen to music on it sometimes.”</p><p>“So it holds recorded music like books hold recorded words?”</p><p>“More or less. Here, you can listen to one of the ear-pieces,” Shinji replied, handing on of them to Simon, and putting the other back in his ear.</p><p>“Woa! There’s a lot more to this music than anything back home. There’s all sorts of instruments I don’t recognize.”</p><p>“Well, I’m guessing you don’t have the materials to make much other than drums and some horns, right?”</p><p>“I think there are a couple harps made from bone and gut, but that’s about it.”</p><p>“Right. There are tons of instruments here, and a lot of them use electricity to make tones, not just strings, wind and stuff. Maybe I can show you some pictures if you remind me later.”</p><p>Reaching the store, they quickly found the ingredients they needed, paid with the money Misato had given them, then returned to the apartment, splitting the groceries between them. Stopping in the girls apartment to grab some dishes and utensils, they went on to their own, and Shinji began preparing the food. As soon as he began chopping, Kamina sauntered in, saying, “Something smells good. How long ‘till the food’s done?”</p><p>“I just started, so it’ll be a while. If you two help out we can get done faster, though.”</p><p>“Alright! Whaddaya want me to do?”</p><p>Setting aside some vegetables and a cutting board, Shinji said, “Can you chop these up?”</p><p>Shing!</p><p>“No! Not with your sword. Use this,” Shinji said hastily, handing Kamina a knife.</p><p>Shortly, even more smells started to fill the air, along with the sizzle of the pans the food was cooking in. Obviously, these wafted through the walls, because Yoko and Misato arrived shortly after.</p><p>“Dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes,” Shinji announced.</p><p>“Finally! I’m starving over here,” Kamina shouted from the other room, where he’d wandered to after completing all he could do to prepare the meal.</p><p>The preparations were quickly completed, plates were served, and everyone sat around the table. “Dig in!” Misato ordered, and so they did.</p><p>Seemingly mere seconds later, Kamina presented a clean plate. “More!”</p><p>“You really are a bottomless pit,” Misato said, “not that I can blame you tonight; Shinji really is a good cook. In fact, I think that, effective immediately, Shinji is our designated cook!”</p><p>“Agreed!” Chorused Simon, Yoko, and loudest of all, Kamina.</p><p>Shinji tried to protest, but Misato countered with, “We need to officially divide up the chores anyway, and this way you’ll be exempt from most of the other jobs. How’s that for a deal?”</p><p>After that, Shinji acquiesced. The chores were ‘fairly’ divided up amongst the other four by rock-paper-scissors, after which Misato declared it bed-time, “Big day tomorrow and all! Y’all want to be well rested for your first day of school, right?”</p><p>…</p><p>The next morning, the alarms that Misato had distributed managed to wake everyone up at nearly the same time. Collecting in Misato’s apartment, they went over the plans for the day. Breakfast consisted of instant meals yet again since Shinji’s shopping expedition the day before had only gotten enough ingredients for dinner, which left everyone but Misato disappointed after the night before. Promising to take them out to buy more groceries that afternoon, Misato handed out the school uniforms.</p><p>“What is this lame crap?” Kamina turned his uniform over in his hands. “Shinji can pull this off with his jacket, but what are Simon and I supposed to do?”</p><p>“You’ll just have to suck it up. Shinji isn’t going to be wearing his jacket anyway, that would violate the dress code as well. Don’t worry too much about it, everyone has to wear the same stuff.”</p><p>After Kamina begrudgingly put on the uniform, they walked out into the cool morning air. They arrived to class early, shortly before the other students began filing in, giving some looks (and second looks for Yoko) to the unfamiliar faces standing in the front of the room.</p><p>The teacher finally arrived and announced that four new students would be transferring in. Luckily, with the recent angel attack, several families had evacuated, so there were plenty of seats. The teacher allowed each of the four a moment to introduce themselves.</p><p>“I’m Kamina, the badass leader of Team Gurren, and this here is my bro, Simon!” Kamina announced, nearly bowling Simon over with a slap on the back.</p><p>Yoko smacked Kamina on the back of the head, whispering harshly, “Low profile, remember?” before making her own, more sedate, “I’m Yoko Littner, pleased to meet you all.”</p><p>Shinji stuttered through his introduction and, after some prodding, Simon did as well. The rest of the class chorused words of welcome, and the new students took their seats. The teacher then announced, “In addition, please welcome back Toji Suzuhara, who’s been out for a family emergency the last few days,” indicating a tall young man at one of the desks. The teacher began class, teaching something that most of the class promptly tuned out.</p><p>Shinji took the opportunity to scan around the room, and stopped when he saw a certain blue-haired girl, still covered in bandages, seated next to the window, “Rei?”</p><p>“Oho, you know her already?” Kamina asked knowingly, stretching hugely in his seat.</p><p>“N-not like that. I only met here once, o-or twice. My father was going to make her pilot the Evangelion.”</p><p>“Alright, the cute surface chick is all yours, then.”</p><p>Shinji cried out in protest, causing the class representative, Hikari Horaki, turned and shushed at them. Soon after, the first period ended. The four new students were called down to the main office, where they were each issued a laptop. Luckily, Simon and Kamina had already used Misato’s computer a couple of times, preventing awkward questions. They returned to class just in time for the next period to begin. Shinji tried to find Rei during lunch, but she disappeared and he spent the lunch with his roommates. The rest of the day passed uneventfully, until the last period of the day.</p><p>Kamina, growing bored, loudly asked, “Hey! Aren’t there any useful classes here, like on combat or piloting?”</p><p>The teacher droned on, oblivious, but the rest of the class gasped and turned toward him. Hikari tried to silence him, but the rest of the class paid her no mind. The clamoring class surrounded Kamina, asking if he was the pilot of the giant robot that had fought the angel a few days ago.</p><p>“No, no, no. That wasn’t me; that was my bro Shinji here,” he said, grabbing Shinji out of his chair and hauling him into the middle of the group. There were more gasps. Questions began coming in fast and furious and Shinji was barely to decipher any of them, and barely got a word in edge-wise even, and so managed to only reveal a little information. Luckily, the bell rang just then. The students desire to get out of school overrode their desire to interrogate Shinji, and the crowd dispersed.</p><p>As the four of them walked out the door after the main rush, they were confronted by the teen the teacher had identified as Toji. Without saying a word, he stepped up and threw a fist at Shinji’s face. Shinji closed his eyes, anticipating a hit…which never came. Opening his eyes again, he saw Toji’s fist caught in the palm of Kamina’s hand. Kamina spoke, “Now, what did yah go and do that for?”</p><p>Another boy came up behind Toji and answered, “You’ll have to excuse him, his sister got hurt in the fight with the angel, so he’s kinda pissed at the pilot for not doing a better job.”</p><p>“Right, now get out of my way so I can hit him for real,” Toji growled</p><p>“I’m sorry, I can’t do that. You see, I was there when it all went down, and I was in the robot that fell on your sister, not Shinji here. If you wanna take a swing, hit me instead.”</p><p>“Bu…wha…I thought Shinji was the pilot of the Eva? What were you doing…?”</p><p>“That’s classified,” Yoko broke in, “But Kamina is right, Shinji was not responsible for your sisters injuries.”</p><p>“Alright then, I just gotta hit somebody!” Toji exclaimed, then took another swing, this time at Kamina, who stood straight, arms crossed, eyes open, with a grin on his face.</p><p>The punch connected with a loud retort, and Kamina swayed back before recovering without taking a step. “Wow, you’ve got a good arm on you.”</p><p>Before Toji could continue, Rei came around the corner, speaking for the first time, “There is an emergency. I will report in first,” before turning and hustling away. As she turned the corner, alarms began blaring, then a voice boomed out over a multitude of PA systems, issuing orders for non-combat personnel to report to their shelters.</p><p>Yoko quickly grabbed Kamina and Simon, shouting back to Shinji over Kamina’s protests, “You get going, I’ll make sure these two, and this one in particular,” holding up Kamina’s arm, “get to the shelter.”</p><p>As they headed toward the shelter, the ground shook, and the sky-scrapers began sinking into the ground. “Aww, even the buildings are retreating around here. Lame,” groaned Kamina.</p><p>…</p><p>Shinji arrived at NERV, and was quickly escorted to the locker rooms. After putting his plugsuit on, he was hustled down to the Eva cages. In short order, he was inserted into the plug and the plug was inserted into Unit 01. Just before the catapult launched, a crane lowered a massive rifle into his hands.</p><p>“When you reach the surface, just aim for the center of the target and pull the trigger,” Ritsuko instructed him.</p><p>The Eva arrived on the surface in a protected exit, with the opening facing away from the Angel, according to Shinji’s HUD map. Shinji tried to jump out of cover and attack, but he froze at the last minute, legs locking. He paused, then took a deep breath of coppery LCL.</p><p>I mustn’t run away, I mustn’t run away, I mustn’t run away, I mustn’t run away, I mustn’t run away, the mantra repeated in his head as he steeled himself to turn the corner and fire at the Angel. With a frantic jerk he rolled around the right corner of the lift exit. Shinji pointed the rifle at the beast and clamped down on the trigger, raining fire and lead on the Angel for several seconds.</p><p>He stopped, looking to see a huge cloud of smoke obscuring his sight of the angel, ears ringing from the noise. Looking down, he could see dozens of spent shell casings sticking out of the ground, their huge size creating small craters where they fell. Misato was yelling at him for blocking his own view, when suddenly a bright lash of energy sprung from the cloud, narrowly missing the Eva but severing most of the barrel of the rifle.</p><p>Misato informed him that a new rifle was being sent up, but Shinji wasn’t paying attention. He watched in terror as the Angel rose from the cloud of smoke, giving him his first good look at it. It was a huge, long red cylinder, with a slightly lighter colored head, vaguely heart-shaped. Several black legs projected from the body near the joint with the head, clustered around another bright red sphere, the ‘core’ of the Angel. Two larger red limbs held the two lashes, one of which had just attacked him. Before he could respond to Misato, the Angel swung with the light whips again, forcing Shinji to retreat.</p><p>Shinji frantically dodged. Every time he avoided an attack, it seemed another was already coming towards him. The ground shook every time he landed after a dodge. The Angel’s flailing attacks cut many buildings down, filling the air with the dust of shattered concrete and smoke from the inflamed contents of the buildings.</p><p>Shinji’s luck ran out when he tripped over the shortened remains of a building felled by an earlier attack. Still scrambling to his feet, he was unable to dodge as the Angel grasped him with both of its tentacles. With an arm-wrenching jerk, the monster flung Unit 01 through the air, sending him tumbling end over end.</p><p>…</p><p>The three teens reached the shelter just as the buildings finished retreating below ground. Within minutes, Kamina was complaining loudly about how boring it was here. Seeing Toji and his friend (who introduced himself as Kensuke Aida) watching a news report on Kensuke’s camera, Kamina sauntered over to peek in as well. Upon seeing that there was no video, he turned and walked back to Simon. “Come on, up an’ attem. We need to go somewhere private.” Kamina grabbed his arm and started dragging him to his feet and toward the exit, when were confronted by Yoko and Hikari.</p><p>“Where do you think you’re going?” they said in unison.</p><p>“Ahh…Umm,” Kamina tried to come up with a response.</p><p>“We…We’re going to the bathroom,” Simon came up with. The girls looked suspicious but let them pass.</p><p>Once they were out in the hall, Kamina took charge again, “Thanks for the save, bro. I should have come up with a story before we busted out of here.”</p><p>“Where are we going, anyway?” Simon asked.</p><p>“Isn’t it obvious? We’re going up to the surface to watch the fight. Shinji needs our support!”</p><p>“Umm…”</p><p>“No time for that, let’s go,” Kamina said, dragging Simon along to the surface.</p><p>They reached the surface near a hill. Climbing to the top, they arrived just as the Eva reached the surface. Kamina whooped as Shinji filled the air with fire and smoke, then cringed as the Angel counterattacked. As Unit 01 began retreating, Kamina moaned, “Man…He’s getting his ass kicked. Too bad Lagann won’t turn on or you could go out and help him.”</p><p>“Uh…I’m not sure I’d be much help. I’m not very good, and Lagann is so small.”</p><p>“Heh. Don’t worry about that. It’s not about the size of the man in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the man that matters most!”</p><p>As he was saying this, the Eva was hurled into the air by the Angel, and Simon cried out as it flew straight towards them. Kamina turned, and seeing it, just grinned and folded his arms in front of him. Simon cried, “What are you doing? Get away from there!”</p><p>“It’s too late to run, it’ll either hit us or it won’t. If I’m gonna buy it, I wanna do it in a looking cool, not cowering in fear.”</p><p>Simon stopped as well, and turned to face the incoming figure. The Eva crashed to the ground in a heap, the shock bowling Simon over and causing even Kamina to take a step to maintain his balance. When the dirt thrown into the air by the impact settled, Simon and Kamina found themselves between the splayed fingers of Unit 01.</p><p>…</p><p>As Shinji flew through the air, he heard an alarm blare and a count-down appear in the corner of his screen. His power cable must have been severed. As he fell, he was shocked to see Simon and Kamina standing on the hill he was falling towards. He desperately attempted to alter course, but with nothing to push against could only watch helplessly as he plummeted towards his friends. Miraculously, he barely missed them, but he had no time to be relieved as the Angel was hot on his heels.</p><p>Turning, he grasped the tentacles as they swung down, determined to protect his friends despite the burning in his hands. Unfortunately, grappling with the angel left him no way of attacking the Angel.</p><p>The NERV bridge crew noticed the dilemma, and Misato came to a snap decision. “Shinji! Eject the entry plug and get those two inside it, then retreat and regroup; you don’t have the power reserves to continue the fight.” Shinji could hear some arguing on the bridge, but Misato did not retract her order.</p><p>The Eva continued to hold the Angel off on its own as the entry plug was partially ejected. Shinji opened the hatch from the inside, then shouted, “Get in,” to the two below. They quickly complied, though they paused as they entered the LCL inside the plug.</p><p>Misato spoke tersely over the comm, “we don’t have time for this! You can breathe it just fine, now get in!”</p><p>Alarms blared on the NERV bridge as the interference of the two foreign minds in the plug scewed their brain monitors, but no ill effects were apparent as Shinji finally managed to hurl the creature away from them, having re-assumed control of the Eva.</p><p>Misato commed in, “good, now retreat to the nearest point on your map so we can get you a new power cable.”</p><p>Shinji stood still for a moment, obviously in pain from the feedback of holding off the light whips. Then, he began muttering something. Before Misato could repeat her order, Kamina slapped him on the shoulder, saying, “Alright, now let’s blow this thing and go home! The three of us together are more than a match for one little beast.”</p><p>Shinji closed his eyes for a moment, taking another deep breath of LCL. As he exhaled, a few bubbles escaping into the plug, he opened his eyes, then drew his Progressive Knife from his left shoulder pylon.</p><p>Misato shouted, “Shinji! Retreat as ordered. You do not have enough power remaining to engage the target.</p><p>Instead, Unit 01 squatted momentarily before breaking into a sprint, flinging whole trees and huge sprays of dirt flying with the impact of its feet. As the Eva neared the Angel, the three teens inside it screamed in unison and leapt into the air.</p><p>The Angel lashed out with both of its energy whips, aiming to pierce the Evangelion’s torso. The mecha parried across with its left arm, grabbing both lashes in its hand and rotating its wrist to wrap them around it. The beams burned the armor off of Unit 01’s arms, and the pilots grunted in pain again, but they continued towards the Angel, then yanked on the whips, causing the Angel to hurtle up towards them as they fell the remaining distance to the ground.</p><p>The two behemoths clashed in midair, and the Angel let of a piercing wail. As they collided, Unit 01 put its entire gargantuan weight behind a thrust with the Prog Knife in its right hand, burying it hilt deep in the core. The two colossi crashed into the ground, with the Eva still on top. The force of the impact caused the few nearby buildings that hadn’t been demolished in the earlier skirmish to collapse, and Unit 01 again put most of its weight into the Prog Knife. With that, the red orb in the Angels chest cracked, white lines like inverted veins covering the surface. The Angel keened again, then fell silent, as the Eva twisted the knife wedged into its core, shattering the sphere into hundreds of pieces.</p><p>The Angels beam arms went dark and limp, falling from the grasp of the giant. Mere moments later, the screens inside Unit 01 went dark as the countdown reached zero.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p>Author's Note: Reposted from fanfiction.net</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As soon as the entry plug was ejected from the Evangelion, the lectures began.</p>
<p>“Dammit, Shinji! When I give an order, you follow it. Unit 01 is the only Evangelion we have right now. If you’d run out of power a couple seconds before you killed the Angel, the entire human race could have been wiped out. As it was, you only made it by about 5 seconds. There is way too much on the line for you to take stupid risks like that. If there was anyone else who could pilot right now, I’d have to take you off the program, possibly permanently.”</p>
<p>Her tirade continued for several more minutes in a similar vein. Shinji, who had been standing up a little when they first got out of the Eva, withered under the verbal assault, trying to hide in plain sight. Just when she seemed to be winding down, she whirled upon Kamina with renewed vigor.</p>
<p>“And you. I don’t think you’ve followed a single instruction today, at least since the Angel attack began. And to top it off, you dragged Simon along in all your tomfoolery!”</p>
<p>Kamina stood tall under her barrage, until she finally finished with, “I’m starting to hope we can get that Lagann of yours working again just so we can get you home.”</p>
<p>Ritsuko gave Misato a sharp look at this, then jerked her head to one side.</p>
<p>Having exhausted her anger and fear for the children’s safety, Misato continued on a lighter note, “Also, we need to buckle down on training you for piloting, Shinji. It’s obvious that we’ve been neglecting that.”</p>
<p>Misato had NERV security escort the three boys home, picking up Yoko on the way (who was not pleased about Kamina running off, either). After they had left, Misato turned back to Ritsuko, “Something you wanted to tell me in private, Ritz?”</p>
<p>“Come with me, there’s something you need to see,” Ritsuko responded, leading Misato into one of the tents springing up around the nearly intact corpse of the Angel. Seeing Misato looking at the kicked-anthill activity, she mentioned offhand, “This is the first good sample of an Angel we’ve got, so we’re going to be studying it extensively.”</p>
<p>Entering the tent, they headed for a computer set up on a folding table, with a pair of metal folding chairs in front of it. Ritsuko quickly pulled up several windows, linking them together, and hit play. The computer began playing four feeds simultaneously. One feed was of a rooftop camera, showing the location where the Angel now lay. The next showed an overhead tracking shot of the whole engagement. The third showed a camera down in the cages, focused on Lagann, and the last simply showed the battery reserve timer for Unit 01.</p>
<p>“First off, you’ll notice that as soon as Unit 01 went fully active upon reaching the surface, there was a reaction from ‘Lagann,’” Ritsuko pointed out, as when the Eva began moving, Lagann’s eyes began to glow almost imperceptibly, “There wasn’t much change, but after what came later we took a closer look at the footage and noticed the change. Otherwise we probably never would have noticed it.”</p>
<p>As they reached the end of the fight, Ritsuko said, “Okay, pay close attention here. This is the important part. Watch feeds 1, 3, and 4.”</p>
<p>On the screen the Eva charged into view, having thrown the Angel down. It halted momentarily at the Angel’s desperate final attack, before it pulled the Angel towards itself and swung its prog knife. Misato threw the feeds to a much slower rate, making the knife closing with the red core seem to crawl. Misato squinted at the screen, “The prog knife doesn’t look right. There was a flash of light, and now it almost looks like a… drill?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, and that’s not the only thing odd about it. At that exact moment, Lagann lit up much brighter, and gave off some energy readings that set of several alarms.” Backing it up again, Ritsuko played the last couple seconds in slow motion again, “And here’s the best part. Look at the emergency power timer. Right as that flash of light, Lagann lighting up, and the odd look of the prog knife occurs, the power count-down just stops for several seconds. As soon as all the weird stuff stops, the timer starts again, so it’s not some coincidence, either.”</p>
<p>“Hmm. We need to try to find out how far this goes. I’ll have Simon come in with Shinji tomorrow, and we can have him try to activate Lagann while Unit 01 is active for training with Shinji. We might be able to send them back where they came from without another Angel around.”</p>
<p>“In a hurry to get them out of your hair now?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t really mean that earlier. It’s hectic with four teens around, but I’ll miss them, and Shinji will probably miss them even more. It’s just…I’ve been talking with Yoko, and she’s worried about how her village is doing without her there. Kamina and Simon weren’t very attached to their village, but I’d bet they’re a little worried as well.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’ll let you get back to your little circus. See you tomorrow.”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Misato arrived at the apartment complex. She checked in on the boys first, only to find all three of them passed out on the couch, with a blanket thrown over them. Heading to her own, the glanced quizzically at Yoko and leaned her head towards the other suite as she entered.</p>
<p>Correctly guessing Misato’s question, Yoko answered, “They’ve been like that almost since they got home. As soon as they got here, they inhaled even more food than they normally do, then conked out on the couch.”</p>
<p>“That explains how a dozen ramen packages ended up on the table. You put the blanket over them?” Misato asked. Yoko nodded, then Misato continued, “Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to make like the boys and pass out as well. It’s been a looong day.”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>The next day, the teens returned to school, only to be met with wild shouting as they entered the classroom. Shinji was once again surrounded by curious children and bombarded with questions, and once again was unable to get a word in edgewise. Luckily, Hikari, businesslike as ever, rescued him, driving the other students off of him and back to their seats. After that, the school day passed uneventfully.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, Shinji went off for training with Unit 01, bringing Simon at Misato’s insistence. As Kamina and Yoko got ready to leave, Kensuke came by. “Yo, Kamina, Toji said he wanted to talk to you. See you,” he said, before running out the door as well.</p>
<p>“I hope he’s not going to punch you again,” Yoko said.</p>
<p>“Nah, that was cool. I don’t think he will, though. See you later,” Kamina said, breezing out the door, leaving Yoko and Rei alone.</p>
<p>Yoko walked up to Rei, “You’re Rei Ayanami, right?”</p>
<p>“Yes. You are Yoko Littner.” It was not a question.</p>
<p>“Do you know what there is to do around here other than school? I’m not used to having all this free time, and I don’t feel like spending all my time hanging out with ‘Team Gurren’ and having to play mom to their antics, yah know?”</p>
<p>“I would not know.”</p>
<p>“Well, what do you spend your free time on?”</p>
<p>“I eat, sleep, and go to NERV.”</p>
<p>“That sounds like a pretty boring life. You really don’t do anything outside of work and school? Can you at least show me around the town while the boys are occupied?”</p>
<p>“That is acceptable. I do not have any responsibilities at NERV today.”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Kamina strolled out the back door of the school, hands clasped behind his head, causing his elbows to take up the whole doorway. Reaching the corner of the building, he walked around it, leaning against the wall, closing his eyes and soaking in the coolness of the shadowed concrete. Shortly, the gravel crunched under the footsteps of another young man approaching, and Kamina pushed himself away from the wall with his right foot. “You had something you wanted to say?”</p>
<p>“I…Uhh…I want you to punch me.”</p>
<p>Kamina quickly obliged. He unclasped his hands, so right fist started from next to his head, as he took a huge stride forward with the same foot, he turned his body into punching Toji in the right shoulder, ending with Kamina a half step past him, as Toji spun around to land face-down on the ground.</p>
<p>Toji groaned and rolled over, only to see a grinning Kamina looming over him. Toji cringed as Kamina moved, only to see him offering a hand up.</p>
<p>As he pulled Toji to his feet, Kamina asked, “What’d you want me to hit you for, anyway?”</p>
<p>“You didn’t know?” Toji asked incredulously, “Wait, then why’d you even hit me?”</p>
<p>“…You said to.”</p>
<p>“I told you to hit me because I hit you yesterday. I wanted to… to… a-and now we’re even.”</p>
<p>“Ah.”</p>
<p>The two boys stood awkwardly for a moment, then Kamina turned and started walking towards the corner of the building, waving one hand casually. “See yah ‘round.”</p>
<p>Just as he went around the corner, a somewhat shrill voice shouted his name. Hikari rushed up upon the two from the other end of the building, trotting past Toji to the corner, but by the time she reached it Kamina was nowhere to be seen. She turned back to back to Toji and grabbed his chin, turning his head back and forth to check for bruises.</p>
<p>Toji pushed her hand away and declared “I’m fine,” before adding, “And what do you care anyway?”</p>
<p>Hikari froze for a second, then turned away to conceal her blush. As she tried to bluster her way through a response, Toji made his escape.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Shinji and Simon arrived at the entrance to Nerv at shift change, allowing them a look at more of the staff and crew of the massive complex as they worked their way upstream against the tide of bodies leaving. Following another handy map, they reached the Eva hangers without incident. As they exited the last elevator, they were faced with Misato and Ritsuko. Misato beckoned them over to Lagann, which was covered in even more sensors than the last time the two boys had been there.</p>
<p>Ritsuko gestured to the robot. “We think we’ve found a way to get your mecha to work, and we want to get a detailed look at it when it does, assuming this works. If it does, we’ll be one step closer to getting y’all back home. Simon, I’d like you to get into Lagann, so you can fully activate it when we power it. We’d also like to get a look at what happens to the pilot of a robot like yours. Shinji, go get your plugsuit on and head up to the gantry, you’re going to be in Unit 01.”</p>
<p>“But why?” Shinji whined, “I want to see Simon pilot.”</p>
<p>“You need to be in Unit 01 for Simon’s mecha to activate, I think. I’ll explain later. In addition, we need to start training you more fully in operating your Eva. We put it off after the Third Angel, and then the Fourth showed up. We don’t want to send you out untrained against the Fifth as well, so we’re going to start now.”</p>
<p>Shortly, Simon was decked out in all sorts of sensors, and Shinji was in his plugsuit and back in the hanger, though many stories higher up. As Shinji climbed down into the brilliant white capsule, Simon shouted, “Good luck!” up to him.</p>
<p>As the entry plug was inserted into the hulking Evangelion’s spinal column, Misato’s face appeared on the monitor. “Alright. When Unit 01 was fighting the fourth Angel yesterday, there was some kind of sympathetic reaction in Lagann. We think that Simon may be able to activate it. So while you’re running combat sims, Simon’s going to try and activate his. And on that note…” Misato turned to someone offscreen, and barked some orders. “Evangelion Unit 01, Activate!”</p>
<p>The purple monstrosity’s eyes lit up, and even though it hadn’t moved an inch, any observer could somehow tell that it was awake and not simply standing at rest.</p>
<p>Ritsuko’s face appeared on Shinji’s monitor. Behind her, Shinji could see Simon climbing into the cockpit of Lagann, which didn’t look any different. “Everything looks good out here,” she reported, “We had the same slight light change as last time, though you probably can’t tell. Shinji, release your clamps and follow the blue line on the floor. It’ll bring you to the test chamber where we will run some simulations for you.”</p>
<p>As Unit 01 walked out of the massive hangar, Ritsuko turned back to face Simon, now situated in the cockpit of his mecha. “Try and activate your robot, Simon,” she ordered, before turning to her instruments to observe the important part of the trial.</p>
<p>Simon pulled the drill-key necklace over his head, and inserted the drill into the middle of the console. Unlike the last time, turning the key produced a response. A barely audible hum could be heard, and a few turns of light spiraled out from the center of the screen. “It’s working!” Simon cried, and as his excitement surged, the lights on the screen spiraled out a few more turns, more than half filling the screen.</p>
<p>Ritsuko watched as the power coming off the mecha surged to near that of a jetliner, then surged again in sync with a spike in the mental monitors on Simon, reaching nearly a third of the power of an Evangelion, all in a frame barely the size of Unit 01’s head, and even more absurd, with no visible power supply. Ritsuko sat back and watched as a robot the size of a small car made one of the fundamental laws of physics curl up in a corner and cry.</p>
<p>“Umm, Miss Akagi, I’ve turned Lagann on, now what?”</p>
<p>“Hmm… Could you just walk around a bit for now? I’d like to see you and your robot in action.”</p>
<p>After Simon had walked Lagann back and forth a bit, Ritsuko had him lift some pallets, then progressed on to more strenuous activities. “Alright, Simon, one more thing. I’d like to see you use your drill. NERV is always expanding, so the foreman here will take us down to one of the tunnels their digging. I want you to dig some of the tunnel so we can get a good look at that drill you used on the Third Angel.”</p>
<p>After reaching the dig site, the foreman moved all the workers and mining equipment a few dozen yards back up the shaft, then beckoned Lagann forward with both hands, like the mecha was an airliner preparing for takeoff.</p>
<p>Lagann stood in front of the wall, staring down the bedrock. Then Simon pivoted back onto his right foot, cocking his arm back. After concentrating for a moment, a large cone sprouted from the mecha’s wrist, replacing its right fist, then resolved into a drill the width of a truck tire and twice as long.</p>
<p>Stepping forward with his back foot, Simon drove the drill into the center of the rock wall with a grunt. A teeth-jarring whine emitting from the drill before dropping in pitch a few octaves as it bit into the wall. Despite being only a few feet wide, the drill somehow dug out a path wide enough for Simon to walk Lagann down, continuing the tunnel several yards in a matter of seconds. After drilling further in a minute than the mining team had in a day, Simon stopped and stood up straight. Opening the cockpit, he sprawled out over the back, sucking in huge gasps of air, then started coughing, choked by the dust he’d thrown into the air.</p>
<p>Ritsuko stood by impassively until he’d stopped hacking. “So you get tired out in proportion to the work you do in the robot? That’s interesting. It’s almost as if it’s drawing power from the pilot, but a human body simply doesn’t contain enough energy to run a machine like that… I guess you’re done for the day. Can you walk the robot back up to the cages?”</p>
<p>Simon nodded, and slowly lifted himself over the edge of the cockpit. Leaving the top of the mecha’s torso open, he trudged along behind Ritsuko as they walked back up to the massive hangar. They reached the hanger just as Unit 01 backed into its docking clamps, and by the time Simon had returned Lagann to its spot, an equally exhausted Shinji had disembarked from the pearly entry plug, and was slowly stumbling towards the locker rooms, dripping a trail of LCL behind him. Simon intercepted Shinji just as they reached the door out of the hangar.</p>
<p>As they walked down the hallway, Shinji moaned, “Man, Misato’s such a taskmaster when she’s serious. Looks like I’ll have to come down here every day after school now.”</p>
<p>Simon sighed as they reached the lockers. “Miss Akagi isn’t much better. She wants me to come over more so she can run more tests.”</p>
<p>The pair split up in the lockers, showering at opposite ends of the communal shower room. Shinji finished his shower, toweling off and wrapping his towel around his waist, and turned to leave… just as Kamina strutted into the shower wearing nothing but a smile and a towel thrown over his shoulder. “Hey, bro’s! There’s a gym here, and we can use it after y’all do your training each day. So yeah, we’re gonna go train there some. You need to be able to fight with your own hands before you can make your gunman do it, right?”</p>
<p>Simon moaned, and Shinji just hung his head as they both trudged towards the lockers. Kamina’s grin only grew wider, and he slapped them both on the shoulders. “Hey, why the long faces? Misato said something about ‘easing them in,’ so since I’m such a nice guy, we’ll start really training tomorrow. Also,” he continued in a conspiratorial whisper, though his voice still managed to echo off the bathroom tiles, “if you’re too tired, you won’t be able to cook as well.”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>The three boys walked up to the surface, then back to the apartment. “More exercise” was Kamina’s reasoning, despite his talk of not working them out that day. As they reached the staircase, they encountered Yoko coming from the other direction. Kamina called out to her and held the door open as she absentmindedly walked through.</p>
<p>Yoko preceded them up the stairs before stopping on the first landing, waiting until Kamina had passed before continuing up the stairs.</p>
<p>“So where were you all afternoon?” Kamina asked over his shoulder.</p>
<p>“I was spending some time with Rei; I wanted to see what the other pilot Shinji was going to have to trust was like”</p>
<p>“Aaand…?”</p>
<p>“Nothing. She just showed me around town, then went off to Nerv. I could hardly get her to talk about anything. She was just like she is in class.”</p>
<p>“Strong silent type, eh?” Kamina ribbed Shinji, who turned bright red.</p>
<p>Yoko punched Kamina’s shoulder. “Leave him alone. Did you like anyone at school?”</p>
<p>“Huh. No!” Kamina blurted, making a brushing-off gesture before turning back to Shinji, “Hey, can you show me something? Someone was saying you can listen to music on the computer.”</p>
<p>“Uh, sure, but I need to start dinner first,” Shinji replied as they reached the apartment.</p>
<p>Shinji quickly chopped and threw the ingredients for dinner into a pot, then set a timer, leaving the food to cook. In the living room, Kamina and Simon sat in front of Simons laptop. As Shinji entered, they both turned to look at him, and his pace slowed as he approached. “So, uh, what did you want me to show you?”</p>
<p>“Someone at school said you could listen to music on the computer. Show us how to get some tunes!”</p>
<p>Shinji opened up a browser and carefully typed out the URL of a website. “You can search here, and you’ll get all sorts of videos, a lot of them are just music.”</p>
<p>“Can you show us some of what you listen to, to get us started?” Simon asked.</p>
<p>“I…Okay.” Shinji blushed slightly, then typed in a few words and hit enter. He clicked the third result, obviously following a well-worn track to the video he wanted.</p>
<p>Rich, slow, classical music, marred by the low quality speakers, flowed from the laptop. Shinji sat rigidly, hiding his enjoyment of the music as the other two listened intently.</p>
<p>“Woa, Simon’s right, there are a lot of instruments in your music. Got anything a bit more… lively after this?”</p>
<p>As the song finished, Shinji clicked one of the links along the side, starting another, slightly faster paced song. As the smells of meat and vegetables from the pot on the stove permeated the room, the three boys continued to surf through Shinji’s selection of classical music, Misato arriving at some point in the middle, until…</p>
<p>“Hey, what’s this one?” Kamina asked, clicking on a link. As the video started a steady pounding and slapping sound set a simple beat. The lyrics cut in, aggressive and in-your-face, ready to take on the world. As the last chorus repeated, a single electric guitar picked up, matching the violence of the beat, rising to nearly drown it out before both suddenly fell silent, the song over. All three sat in stunned silence for a moment.</p>
<p>“Was that it?” Simon asked, “it seems like there should have been more after that.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but more importantly, what was that? That was epic! Where’s some more like that?!” Kamina nearly shouted.</p>
<p>“I… That’s ‘rock and roll’ I think,” Shinji said hesitantly, just as the timer for dinner went off.</p>
<p>The boy’s wolfed down the food even faster than Kamina and Simon usually did, then rushed back to the computer.</p>
<p>“We need to find some more of this ‘rock and roll’” Kamina declared, and so it was. They continued browsing for the rest of the night, all else temporarily forgotten.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Thousands of miles from Japan, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, something resembling a wave broke the surface of the water. As the water moved, the point was covered and uncovered repeatedly. A careful observer would have noticed that the water spend less and less time covering the point, as the tip slowly made its way toward Japan.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Author’s note: Reposted from fanfiction.net</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The door to the apartment opened, and Kamina strolled in, followed by an exhausted Simon and Shinji, leaning on each other as they limped in.</p>
<p>“Did y’all have fun?” Misato asked, turning off the TV.</p>
<p>“Yeah, it was a blast! As usual,” Kamina reported, drowning out the other boys groans of disagreement.</p>
<p>Shinji and Simon dropped onto the couch next to Misato, who wrinkled her nose at the smell of sweat, but couldn’t complain in light of the way she kept her apartment.</p>
<p>Just as he was about to fall asleep, Shinji heard Kamina holler from the other room, “Hey, since you two are so tired, I’m gonna go ahead and make dinner, okay? Now, where did you get off to…”</p>
<p>Shinji snapped fully awake as a small brown blur jumped between him and Simon and burrowed into the couch. Finally registering what Kamina had said, he quickly got up and walked toward the kitchen. “No, I can still cook, sorry.”</p>
<p>Yoko, who’d been thinking along similar lines, said, “Thank god. Here, I can give you a hand with that.”</p>
<p>“You don’t need to help me,” Shinji assured her quietly, as Kamina swung his legs over the back of the couch, oozing into a slouch next to Simon.</p>
<p>Yoko smiled. “Hey, you’re tired and need the help.”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Rei quietly slipped through a door deep in NERVs Geofront, causing a busy Ritsuko to turn her head. “Hello, Rei, you’re early so everything isn’t set up yet.”</p>
<p>“Okay”</p>
<p>After a few minutes, Ritsuko attempted to break the silence and asked Rei “sooo, how was your week?”</p>
<p>“Unusual.”</p>
<p>“How so?” Ritsuko prodded.</p>
<p>“The red haired girl, Yoko. She speaks to me often. I do not know why.”</p>
<p>“Maybe she’s trying to be friends?”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t know,” Ritsuko said.</p>
<p>“Should I try to find out?”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter to me….Okay, we’re ready now.”</p>
<p>As Rei stripped down and climbed into the tank, Ritsuko turned back to the other problem on her plate.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Rei looked up as Kamina walked backwards into the classroom, gesturing and laughing as he chatted with Yoko, Simon and Shinji. As they entered, Yoko poked Kamina and pointed to the clock on the wall. They quickly migrated to their seats, both Yoko and Shinji smiling at Rei as they passed. The teacher arrived and class began.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>The class dragged on, but they finally made it to lunch. Kamina and Yoko pulled up chairs on opposite sides of Shinji, trapping him in as Simon turned around, handing out the lunches they’d brought. Several students turned to look as Rei left her seat, possibly the first time she’d ever done so during school. She approached the other teens at their table, then stopped and turned to stare down at Yoko. The seated teens turned to face her expectantly, Yoko beaming at her perceived victory.</p>
<p>“Miss Litner, I wish to know why-“ Rei was interrupted by the piercing wail of the Angel attack siren, her personal pursuits immediately forgotten as she whirled and trotted purposefully towards the door. The rest of the class quickly followed suit, the normal students heading towards the emergency shelter, while Shinji followed Rei, heading towards the nearby NERV entrance.</p>
<p>As he left the classroom, Shinji noticed that Simon, Kamina and Yoko where following him. “Umm… shouldn’t….” he started to mumble.</p>
<p>Cutting off his stuttering, Kamina stated, “we’re coming with you, of course! Now that Lagann is up an’ running, Simon can fight beside you.”</p>
<p>With no time to argue, Shinji hurried toward the entrance to the Geofront, followed closely by the other three.</p>
<p>The four hurried down to the cages, stopping only for Shinji to throw his plugsuit on. Reaching their destination, they encountered Ritsuko and Misato.</p>
<p>Ritsuko tapper her fingers together in an imitation of a clap, then she and Misato spoke at the same time, “Oh, just the young man I was looking for.” After they each glanced at each other, Misato continued, “Morning, Shinji, time for us to earn our extravagant paychecks. Heh. Anyway, the Angel appears to be holding position directly over Nerv HQ, and appears to have deployed some kind of drill, which it’s using to attack the Geofront armor. The current plan is for you to pop out of one of the elevators close by the Angel and take it out.”</p>
<p>Ritsuko added, “Also, repairs are almost complete on Unit 00, so Rei will stand by as backup for you. We don’t want to have the Eva’s reactivation under such circumstances, so we will only activate Unit 00 if absolutely necessary.” Turning to face the other three teens, she went on, “Simon, can you come with me? I was going to try and track you down, glad to see they brought you along. I want you to get in your Lagann; during this Angel attack I’d like to try and see if anything new happens with your robot.”</p>
<p>Misato looked questioningly at Ritsuko. “Shouldn’t you be doing something more important during a crisis like this?”</p>
<p>“Look who’s being responsible now, eh? It doesn’t really matter; I can’t contribute anything to this situation until we have some knowledge of the Angel’s capabilities. As soon as we do, I’ll start working on contingency planning.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Misato said dismissively, before turning and beckoning for Shinji to follow her. “Okay, let’s get going. Need to get you into Unit 01 and out fighting that Angel ASAP.”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>As Shinji situated himself in the entry plug, Misato’s face appeared on one of the side screens. “Ready to go?” she asked.</p>
<p>Shinji nodded slightly in affirmation.</p>
<p>“Alright, EVA Unit 01, move out!”</p>
<p>Shinji grunted slightly as his weight seemed to multiply under acceleration. Misato stayed on his monitor, filling him in some more. “Okay, we’re going to putting you on the surface at the nearest exit point to the Angel, so be ready to fire. We’re hoping to take it out with a first strike. At point blank range you could be in a little trouble if you don’t take it out, and as we discussed earlier, deploying Unit 00 and Rei is a last resort. 5 seconds ‘till surface. Good luck!”</p>
<p>Misato’s image winked out on the monitor, but was replaced by a new, brighter light as the Eva broke forth into the warm mid-day sun. The sky was marred by the massive geometric shape of the Angel looming overhead. As soon as his shoulders where above the ground, Shinji raised his rifle to the mech’s massive shoulder, aimed toward the center of the creature… and screamed. As soon as he tried to pull the trigger on the rifle, a brilliant beam of energy flashed into being from the nearest corner of the Angel, smashing into Shinji’s weapon. In an instant, the weapon melted and there was a series of explosions as the ammunition cooked off. The beam carried on through the vaporizing rifle and smashed into the Evangelion’s chest. The purple armor was shattered by the sheer force of the beam, and Shinji’s scream was wrenched from his throat as he felt the burning energy on his own chest at the same time as the LCL was heated to scalding temperatures.</p>
<p>Hundreds of meters below the ground, Misato stared in horror as Shinji was pinned in place by the Angels attack, rendered helpless by the pain and surprising reversal. In a desperate burst of speed, she hurled herself over to the nearest console and slammed her hand down on a button. Turning back to the screen, she watched as the stricken behemoth began to submerge. It seemed to take eons, but within scant seconds Unit 01 and its pilot where both safely out of sight, causing the blue octahedron to return its focus to burrowing towards the Geofront.</p>
<p>The purple mecha was sprayed down to cool it off as it arrived back in the cages, so trails of steam where still rising off of it when an out-of-breath Misato reached the hangar, where Kamina was pounding on Shinji’s back to ‘help’ him evacuate the LCL from his lungs. Shinji was just beginning to breathe normally when Misato crushed the air out of his lungs again with a smothering hug. “Oh thank god you’re okay,” she exclaimed breathlessly.</p>
<p>Once Shinji finally got some air, he apologized, “Sorry… I couldn’t…”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, we’ve still got time. I’m sure we’ll figure something out. Rits will come up with something, I’m sure of it.”</p>
<p>“You shouldn’t blindly trust in people like that, Misato,” the aforementioned blonde scientist commented from behind.</p>
<p>Unabashed, Misato smailed and responded, “but you do have a plan, right?”</p>
<p>“…Yes.”</p>
<p>“Well, what was all the drama about, then? C-mon, spill it,” Misato cajoled.</p>
<p>Ritsuko held up her hand. “Not just yet. I don’t want to have to go over this a dozen times, so I’m going to tell everyone at once. There’ll be a meeting in 15 minutes, and I’ll tell everybody then.”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>“Ladies and gentlemen, this,” Ritsuko said, gesturing towards an image on the large screen behind her, “is the Fuji Heavy Industries’ Positron Cannon.”</p>
<p>On the screen was a massive tube, about as long as an Evangelion was tall, covered in smaller piping, vents, and wires and cables of every size.</p>
<p>“We’ve determined that the Angel only attacks when there is a threat to in within a certain radius, or when an actual attack is directed at it from any distance. Thus, we need to be able to take down the Angel in a single strike from beyond its threat detection radius. And I believe that the Positron Cannon...” Ritsuko gestured again, “ is just what we need to do that.”</p>
<p>“It is currently a laboratory tool, similar to the LHC, but it’s much smaller, and we are currently working overtime to convert it to be Eva-portable. Then, at 2358, just before the Angel finishes penetrating our armor, one of the Evangelion units will fire upon it from across the bay. Since that’s beyond its threat detection radius, it won’t respond until after we fire… and if we can kill it in one shot, it won’t have a chance to respond then, either.”</p>
<p>“How’re we gonna power it?” Someone in the crowd called out. “No matter how it works, it’ll take a massive amount of power to break through an AT field at that range.”</p>
<p>“I was just getting to that,” Ritsuko responded calmly. “NERV personnel and support staff will begin laying cable to the mountainside immediately, along with setting up capacitor banks. Starting 6 hours before the firing time, all of Japan will be going into full blackout in order to funnel all power in the country into those capacitors. You’ve each been given a brief with your individual assignments and duty area which will lay out the relevant portions of the plan in more detail. Let’s be about it.”</p>
<p>As the NERV personnel rose and filed out of the room, Ritsuko motioned for the teens to stay behind.</p>
<p>“Hey, what’re our jobs?” Kamina demanded. “You aren’t planning to leave us out, are you?”</p>
<p>“No, actually, but I’ll get to that in a moment. This last Angel attack, especially since we’ve been in a stable situation for several hours, has given us a lot more time to collect data on your ‘Lagann.’ I’d theorized that it only worked in the presence of an AT field, and now we’ve confirmed it. It appears that your robot doesn’t follow the laws of nature or physics, but neither does an AT field, and an AT field seems to warp physics around it enough for your robot to operate. We’ve also analyzed the data from the last Angel, and it appears that there’s a surge in the AT field strength at the moment of their destruction. And that’s your ticket home.”</p>
<p>“Huh?!” Everyone else in the room gasped simultaneously.</p>
<p>The doctor continued, “The surge will also spike the power in your robot. Lagann has some kind of connection to where you’re actually from, which must be how it piggybacks on the AT field; the AT field weakens reality, allowing Lagann to impose it’s… and your… reality upon itself. If it’s close enough to the Angel when it dies, Lagann should be able to go back the way it came.”</p>
<p>“Which brings me back to the prior point on ‘leaving you out.’ Just before midnight, both Eva units will be deploying to the surface. The three of you will, if you can be trusted not to interfere, will go with them. This will be a long range engagement, so you might not be close enough, but do not, under any circumstance, try to get closer. If it doesn’t work this time, hopefully the next Angel attack will be more favorable. Can you cooperate?”</p>
<p>“Home…” whispered Yoko, and then straightened. “I’ll make sure these two cooperate.”</p>
<p>Ritsuko nodded. “Good. Now you should get some rest. There honestly isn’t anything you can do between now and op hour.” She turned and left as well, heading to begin her own preparations.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>The five teens sat on a bluff overlooking the hillside upon which hundreds of workers scurried like an overturned anthill. The frantic work was visibly taking shape as thousands of meters of cable where laid along the side of the road leading up to the mountain. Nearby, the two Evangelions and a single Gunman were slowly craned out of the ground, utilizing on of the many far-flung exits to NERV. Alongside them, the positron cannon was also being set up. It now resembled a massive, Eva scale rifle, complete with a butt-stock and oversized trigger. Across the lake lay the city of Tokyo 3, and as they watched the lights slowly went out. As they did, the work on the hill redoubled, and a faint hum could be heard as thousands of capacitors began charging.</p>
<p>“Yoko Litner,” Rei said flatly.</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Why…what?”</p>
<p>“Why do you speak to me?”</p>
<p>“Why wouldn’t I?”</p>
<p>“No one but you speaks to me.”</p>
<p>“I guess I wanted to be friendly. You’re a pilot, just like Shinji, and that sorta makes you one of us, doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, you should join Team Lagann!” Kamina butted in.</p>
<p>“Team… Lagann? That is the name of the robot.”</p>
<p>“W…Yea…shaddup, it’s a good name. Anyway, the four of us are all in it, so you should be too. That way we’ll have all the pilots in it!”</p>
<p>Rei furrowed her brow slightly, obviously not following Kamina’s ‘logic.’ “I… do n-”</p>
<p>“Great! Now we’re up to 5 members. At this rate we’ll have tons of people soon.”</p>
<p>Rei’s head snapped back forward, and she stood up, stating, “It is time to return to the Evangelions,” before walking towards the mountain.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Shinji exhaled as the LCL went over his head, pushing as much air out of his lungs as he could before sucking in the slightly sticky fluid. Even as the teens were getting into position, Ritsuko’s face appeared on the viewscreen for a final briefing.</p>
<p>“Shinji, you will be firing the positron cannon, since you’re in the proven Eva and have more firearms experience than Rei does, or so Ms. Katsuragi tells me. Rei has been given a shield, using ablative tiles from the US space shuttle program. Based on the firepower from the Angel’s beam attack, it should be able to hold back the Angel for 5 seconds. You won’t have much time to make a second shot, so make sure to nail it with the first one. At this distance, the beam will be affected by the Earth’s magnetic field in flight, so it won’t be as simple as aiming directly at the target. Your Eva’s computers will handle that, though, so you’ll just have to aim for the point the computer tells you to.”</p>
<p>“Rei, your job is to protect Shinji while he makes a second shot, if the first one doesn’t kill it. The positron cannon is our only chance to take down this Angel.”</p>
<p>“Simon, Kamina, Yoko. You are to stay out of the way of the Evangelions, period. You might be useful in some way, but if you act without permission you are much more likely to get everyone on this planet killed.”</p>
<p>Unit 01 had been posed like an enormous manikin, already lying prone cradling the positron cannon, poking over the edge of a berm. Unit 00 took up a position ahead and off to the side, ready to step in, but out of the line of fire.</p>
<p>As Shinji settled into place, a countdown appeared on one of the side screens, displaying the time until the cannon was ready to fire. At one minute, a second countdown showing power remaining appeared as the Eva’s went onto onboard power, every scrap of energy in Japan going to power the cannon. A growing hum could be heard as the capacitor banks reached their capacity. The hum neared a shriek as the timer passed the 30 second mark. Over the mike, he could hear the collective breath taken by the command crew, along with uncountable others around the world, as the timer reached 10 seconds. Taking one last breath, he slowly exhaled, leaning into the rifle. Following the reticle on the screen, he aimed the cannon to a point a hundred meters to the side of the Angel. As the last seconds drained away, he began to ever so slowly tighten the Eva’s massive finger on the trigger. It came as a surprise to him as much as anyone else when the weapon fired.</p>
<p>A brilliant beam, too bright to have any color, sprang forth, lighting the mountainside more than any daylight ever had. Trees too close to the path of the beam burst in to flames.</p>
<p>Just as the beam fired, though, the Angel spun, in the blink of an eye bringing one of its corners to bear, and it fired a beam of its own on a reciprocal flight. In between the two sources, the massive charges seemed to pass each other. Then there was a massive blast, and the two beams both flew out of the intersection on wildly different bearings. Though through no fault of his own, Shinji had missed.</p>
<p>The seeming slow of the prior seconds evaporated in an instant. No orders needed to be given as Shinji frantically threw back the massive slide, like a bolt action writ large, ejecting a mangled fuse the size of a truck, and began to jack another one into place. The sudden silence left after the discharge was replaced by a quickly growing hum once again, this time accompanied by a more shrill note, and a faint whiff of ozone to anyone on the ground, as overworked components slid toward failure.</p>
<p>Even as he readied for a second shot, the Angel beat him to the punch. Unfazed by the Eva’s onslaught, it fired a second beam in the same direction as its first, and this time there was no beam from the positron cannon to intercept it. There was nothing between Unit 01 and the blast of coherent light… until Unit 00 stepped into place. Crouched behind its shield like an ancient legionnaire, Rei’s mecha took the assault. The Eva visibly rocked backwards as the beam connected, and the shield instantly started to glow. Within a second or two, it glowed nearly as brightly as the beam of light it was stopping, and then it no longer stopped the beam. The Angel’s light crashed through the shield, seeking the Eva that had sought to do it harm, but Rei had interposed Unit 00, not just its shield. She screamed in pain as the Evangelion’s chest began to glow as well, and then fell to her knees, and then to the side. But her sacrifice had been worth it; as she fell, the rifle in Shinji’s arms snapped back into position, and he fired without conscious thought, just as the Angel’s beam slackened. This time his shot wasn’t intercepted. It slammed into the AT field, and then right through it, slowed even less than the Angel’s attack had been by Rei’s physical shield.</p>
<p>The beam slammed into the Angel almost dead center. Almost. As it crashed through the heart of the behemoth, it crashed into the Angel’s core, but it wasn’t a direct hit. It cracked the core, but failed to shatter it, weakened by failing capacitors, the atmosphere, and having to burn through many meters of the Angels outer body. Still, the Angel reeled, the drill stopping as it listed to one side like a waterlogged ship, and massive entry and exit wounds gaped in its sided.</p>
<p>Shinji prepared to fire again, but a warning popped up in the place the countdown had occupied. After that second shot, the capacitors were spent, many of them cooking off. It looked like they were out of options.</p>
<p>Suddenly, a comparatively tiny arm popped into view. Lagann, containing Simon, Kamina, and Yoko, waved frantically, and then Kamina shouted over the com, “Throw us!”</p>
<p>“Huh?!” exclaimed Shinji, mirrored by the other two occupants of the mecha, let alone the command staff.</p>
<p>“Throw Lagann at the Angel. We’ll finish it off for you!”</p>
<p>“Uhmm,” Shinji floundered, unsure of whether to go along.</p>
<p>Ritsuko sighed. “Just do it. We don’t have any better choices. With the Positron Cannon out of commission, we don’t have time for any backup plans. The Angel is regenerating, and it will breach the Geofront before we have time to come up with another plan.”</p>
<p>“A-alright.” Shinji dropped the now useless rifle, and Lagann leapt into the Eva’s hands as it stood to its full height at last. Just as the reeling Angel began to right itself, Shinji wound up and released a fastball the size of a small car.</p>
<p>As Lagann flew from the Eva’s fingertips, there was a sharp crack, and cracks appeared on the housings of many of the surviving capacitors. In the wake of the supersonic robot, collapsing air suddenly formed clouds, slightly obscuring its flight. As it flew, a massive drill once again sprouted from its forehead, complemented by the spin imparted onto it by the throw. Over the communications system, Kamina could be heard whooping loudly.</p>
<p>The Angel finished realigning itself, and fired once more at this latest projectile. However, Lagann’s drill began to shine eerily as it flew, and when the beam hit the tip of its horn, instead of beginning to cook the robot, it scattered to the sides, failing even to slow the mecha. Its AT field had yet to fully recover, and offered even less resistance to the flying robot than it had to the positron cannon. Lagann flew into one of the holes left by the earlier blast, and then there was yet another flash of light. The Angel’s presence vanished as its core was finally shattered, leaving its lifeless husk to crash to the ground below.</p>
<p>Exhausted cheers filled the ground below as Shinji ejected his entry plug, and then dashed toward the fallen Unit 00, his ears roaring in their sudden exposure to air instead of LCL. Its plug, too, was partially ejected, but it was warped, and heat shimmered in the air around it. A few technicians who were spraying fire retardant on the hatch jumped out of the way as Shinji wrenched the door open, his palms reddening from the heat. As he saw Rei, alive but unconscious, he realized that he hadn’t evacuated the LCL from his lungs. The roaring in his ears grew louder, and his vision grew dark.</p>
<p>Author Note:</p>
<p>Reposted from fanfiction.net</p>
<p>I had a really dumb idea (which I will not be using), namely having the kids accidentally swap pets; Boonta is left behind in NGE-verse, and Pen-pen in TTGL-verse.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once again, Simon found himself floating weightlessly hundreds of meters in the air, and then heard the steadily increasing roar of the wind as he and the other occupants of Lagann began to fall to the earth below.</p><p>“Oh shiiiiiiiiiiii-!“ Simon and Yoko screamed in unison as they hunkered down and grasped the sides of the mecha for dear life.</p><p>Kamina hollered as well, but for him is was a whoop of exhilaration as he leaned over the side of Lagann’s head, drinking in the scenery below as it grew increasingly larger.</p><p>“Hey!  Look! There’s some ganmen down there! And there’s people there too!” Kamina shouted, louder even than was necessary to be heard over the roar of the wind.</p><p>“What?” Yoko carefully peeked over the edge as well, seeing a couple dozen humans shooting at a pair of ganmen. “Crap. They’re from my village. What’re they doing fighting way out here?”</p><p>“Whatever. Hey, Simon, aim for that one!”</p><p>“Aim?! We’re falling, you idiot! How’s he supposed to aim?”</p><p>Laughing, Kamina placed his hands over Simon’s on the controls, and pushed them as far as they would go. Somehow, the mecha managed to accelerate even faster toward the ground, causing the three of them to nearly float out of their seats. Yoko, who didn’t have a grip on the controls like the others, wrapped her arms around Kamina’s neck. Even she wasn’t sure if she was trying to hold on, trying to stop him from pushing them toward disaster, or both.</p><p>There were two ganmen arrayed on the desert below, and a couple dozen humans. The humans were bunkered down behind a rocky outcrop, with the ground around them littered with shell casings. As they approached, they could see one of them wearily turn their head skyward, freezing when they saw yet another ganmen falling from above.</p><p>Just as they began to wearily turn their weapons toward the new threat, they noticed the trajectory the smaller mecha was taking. The steady fire slacked off as everyone turned to watch as Lagann collided with the beastman piloted ganmen like a meteor. The resounding clang of metal on metal nearly deafened the observers, and a cloud of dirt and debris obscured their view. When the plume of dust cleared, both units could be seen sprawled out cold.</p><p>Cheering, spirits renewed by gifts from above, the humans turned their attention, and weapons, upon the remaining mecha. It staggered under the redoubled firepower, cracks and gaps appearing in its armor. Finally, the light faded from the robot’s eyes, and it crumpled to the ground in a heap of nearly unidentifiable parts. With both mechas out of action, the humans crawled out of cover and sallied forth to see what could be scavenged.</p><p>Kamina was the first to return to his senses. Kipping to his feet, he observed that they’d been thrown out of Lagann after it impacted. Seeing the motionless, but intact, bulk of the larger ganmen, an idea struck him. Taking the stirring Yoko’s rifle, he marched over to the prostrate behemoth and stomped his foot into the face of the ganmen. The face of the mecha began to slowly, jerkily lift, its operation impeded by the massive dent near the top. The grinding noise came to a stop with the mask half off, and the occupant of the vehicle found a rifles muzzle pressed against his own. The two stared wordlessly at each other for a few seconds, and then the dark form within the cockpit fled past Kamina, making a break for the open desert. Kamina fired a potshot after him, but missed.</p><p>Seeing the commotion, a group of villagers with weapons at low port headed in the direction of the two intact ganmen. Upon seeing a now upright Yoko, they visibly relaxed, holstering or re-slinging their weapons.</p><p>“Hey, Yoko! We were worried when you didn’t check in last night,” spoke the leader, waving as he approached.</p><p>“Last… Night?” Yoko repeated slowly, a blank look on her face. “I’ve been gone for a week!”</p><p>“Huh?!  You get hit on the head? How’d you not know how long it’s been since you left?”</p><p>“Umm, I think that’s gonna be a lo-ong story.”</p><p>“Have anything to do with these two guys?” He asked, gesturing toward her companions.</p><p>“Oh, right. This is Simon, and the one who needs to give me back my rifleis Kamina, both from Giha village,” She said, snatching her gun from Kamina, who rewarded her with a sardonic grin. Facing the two boys, she gestured toward the group slowly filtering in around them, “and this is my village. This is Dayakka Littner, our leader.” She then hurriedly gave a brief account of what had happened, with a promise to tell the story in detail later.</p><p>“Welcome to the surface, boys” he acknowledged them once she’d finished, “you can stay with us, so long as you’re willing to pull your weight.”</p><p>With the introductions out of the way, Dayakka turned back to his crew, “alright, you layabouts! Let’s get these mechs broken down so we can haul ‘em back to camp.”</p><p>As the crew approached, crowbars and other implements of deconstruction at the ready, Kamina leapt to block their path, shouting “Hey, don’t touch my new ride!”</p><p>As they stopped, more from shock and confusion than from Kamina’s physical impediment, Kamina cracked a smile and started to explain his idea. “Simon here has already got one ganmen, right? That means that we can pilot them, just like those beastmen. I’m gonna drive this one, since I captured it fair and square, right?”</p><p>The dazed onlookers stared, then grins to match Kamina’s own spread across their faces as comprehension dawned. Yoko seemed more resigned to his antics than the others, but when even Dayakka agreed, the matter was settled. After sending a runner back to the village proper, they began the process of hauling the second mech back in one piece.</p><p>Despite their exhaustion after hauling everything back to the village, their victory kicked off a party that ran late into the night. Kamina’s overdramatic rendition of their story thus far put him in the spotlight, though he dragged Simon in as well to help him tell the story. Yoko tried to play the voice of reason, toning down Kamina’s exaggerations and Simons hero-worship of Kamina, but the crowd-pleasing nature of his story-telling led to inevitable victory for Kamina and Simon’s version of events. Finally, even Kamina’s boundless energy seemed spent and he and Simon collapsed in a storage room they’d taken over as temporary lodging.</p><p>…</p><p>Worlds away, Shinji Ikari opened his eyes to the afterimages of the two falling asleep. Staring up, he gazed upon the ceiling of a hospital room. He slowly sat up in the bed, feeling the pull of dried LCL on his skin and in his hair. Seeing that he wasn’t attached to any monitors or IVs, he cautiously got out of bed. Despite his slow standing, his head swam momentarily, but then he steadied himself and moved toward the door… which promptly burst open and a purple-haired cannonball crushed him against her chest.</p><p>“Ohthankgodyou’reokay! When we couldn’t find the others I was so worried even though the medics said you’d be fine.” Misato spoke in a rush, barely intelligible due to talking into Shinji’s hair.</p><p>Shinji awkwardly patted her back. “Slow down, please. What happened? Who is missing?”</p><p>“Yoko, Kamina, and Simon. We haven’t been able to find a trace of them since the angel was defeated. Augh!” Misato tried to pull at her hair, but Shinji actually smiled.</p><p>“I think you can stop searching.”</p><p>“What?! Aren’t you worried about them, too?”</p><p>“I think they’ve gone back to … wherever they came from.”</p><p>“How? And how could you even know?” Misato was starting to calm down and think rationally again, but was still unsure.</p><p>Shinji smiled sheepishly this time. “It’s mostly a feeling. I, uh, sorta saw them while I was out. A dream. I know that’s not much to go on, but…”</p><p>“It’s a lot better to think than that they’re… gone for good, right?” Misato finished.</p><p>“Yeah.” Shinji nodded.</p><p>Misato stood up straight, attempting to project an aura of surety despite her near-breakdown, and nodded to herself. “Alrighty, then. I’m going to call off the search. There’s a lot to do to clean up after this angel, anyway.”</p><p>…</p><p>Gendo once again sat alone in the darkened conference room. As the projectors came to life, an even more confident smirk than usual failed to conceal itself behind his tented hands. This time around he spoke promptly, “As I assured you gentlemen earlier, our guests have left the stage. Despite their presence, all three Angels have appeared, and been defeated, without incident.”</p><p>Grudging murmurs of agreement sounded around the table, though not from the man at the other end. Gendo allowed them a brief pause, then continued on to his next topic, “As discussed previously, now that your other concerns have been taken care of, will Unit 02 be released for transfer?”</p><p>“It is en route as we speak.”</p><p>“Excellent. I have everything I need. Good day to you all.” Gendo turned to leave, but stopped as Kihl cleared his throat.</p><p>“I trust that such disturbances will not be allowed to interfere with the scroll’s predictions again?”</p><p>“You can count on it. We now have contingency planning in place if they, or any other outsiders, manage to intrude upon the scenario.”</p><p>The projectors died and Gendo walked out of the room, where Fuyutsuki was waiting. They both walked toward the elevators, stopping to wait for a lift to arrive.</p><p>“Is our other special delivery on its way as well.”</p><p>“Of course. It will rendezvous with the carrier before they arrive in Tokyo 3.”</p><p>A lift arrived, and Gendo stepped in. Turning back, he replied, “excellent. I’ll leave you to it” as the lift doors closed.</p><p>Fuyutsuki gazed bemusedly at the door, before hitting the button to call another elevator car.</p><p>…</p><p>As Misato drove them home, once again in her Renault now that she wasn’t ferrying a crowd, she turned to talk to Shinji, “hey, I know it sucks not having them around anymore, but what say we make the best of it? Would you like to move into my suite? It’s gonna be lonely without them around, and it’s just gonna be worse with you in a whole ‘nother apartment.”</p><p>Shinji gazed out the passenger window for a while.</p><p>“May… maybe later. Tonight I think I just want to be alone for a while. Is that okay?”</p><p>“Aw, he wants to play the brooding loner, does he,” Misato mocked managing to bring some levity back to her persona.</p><p>Shinji, also feeling his spirits return, managed to fire back, “Maybe if you weren’t such a slob…” though he trailed off a bit at the end.</p><p>Misato laughed uproariously, and reached over to tousle his hair. “He lives! That’s more like it!”</p><p>Shinji, however, blanched and pointed ahead. “Misato, eyes on the road!”</p><p>The car swerved even more violently than usual as Misato corrected, overcorrected, and they continued home.</p><p>…</p><p>Shinji Ikari had once thought that being the new, unknown student in class was the most awkward position to be in. Now, he knew he’d been wrong. Being an existing student, but still virtually unknown by the people still in his class, was far more awkward.</p><p>As a new student, one could expect to be surrounded by others, eager to find out where the new guy would fit into the pecking order, but it would usually stop during class, at least. But under the current circumstances, he was surrounded by stares of people who he didn’t know, but who knew him, and the stares kept up even after class started. At least none of them messaged him.</p><p>Things finally broke during lunch. Toji, tailed as always by Kensuke and his camcorder, approached Shinji’s desk.</p><p>Toji scratched the back of his head awkwardly and averted his gaze, but finally managed to get out, “so, uh, hey Shinji. Where are, you know, Kamina and the others? I never really finished apologizing to him, or, uh, you, really. So, sorry, for earlier, to you, I guess.” He trailed off and one of his sideways glances turned in a meaningful direction, and Shinji noticed that Hikari was camping out nearby, probably to make sure Toji was actually apologizing.</p><p>Shinji managed to iron out a response, based on what ‘civilians’ were allowed to know. “They, uh, had to go back home. I don’t have any way to contact them right now, before you ask. Uh, thanks for the apology?” To Shinji’s eternal relief, that seemed to be enough even for Hikari, and Toji slunk off, and Kensuke followed, though not before throwing a somewhat suspicious glance his way.</p><p>…</p><p>After class, he was cornered once again, this time by Hikari herself. “That idiot apologized properly to you, right?”</p><p>Shinji, who just wanted to get away, quickly affirmed this, “Yeah, he did, and no, I couldn’t help him find the others. Can I go now?” While he asked this, he was already moving toward the door, when the class rep cleared her throat again.</p><p>“Actually, I was hoping you could help me with something else. Rei has missed a bunch of school lately, and she wasn’t in school today, either, and I was wondering if you could take some handouts to her. Those two”, her tone leaving no question as to who she was referring, “have been useless, and I was hoping you could do better.”</p><p>…</p><p>And so Shinji found himself in front of a dilapidated door in a building that seemed to have been partially smashed. Since it had been dark then, and was light now, he couldn’t tell if it was a part of the city he’d fought in against the 3rd Angel. He hoped it wasn’t, at least.</p><p>When he knocked on the door, just how damaged it was became obvious; with at least one hinge broken, the latch didn’t engage, so the door swung open slightly at his knock. Despite his better judgement, he slowly pushed the door the rest of the way open, softly calling Rei’s name. Stepping cautiously inside, he could plainly see that the buildings appearance wasn’t just outward. The walls were visibly cracked, and it looked like half the lightbulbs were broken. He could even see the remains of some of the bulbs littering the floor, though they’d at least been pushed out of the main walkways. The building’s damage wasn’t the only detritus, either; regular trash seemed to be piling up in places as well.</p><p>Shinji heard a sound and froze, straining to listen more closely. Hearing the sound of running water, he had a premonition of disaster, and called out again, loudly, “Rei!”</p><p>He heard the water turn off. Now that she knew he was here, crisis was hopefully averted, and sighed in relief.</p><p>A premature sigh, as it turned out, when a dripping wet Rei walked out of from the direction of the bathroom, with only a small, soaked towel draped over her shoulders, despite the warning. Shinji yelped and turned away from her near-nudity, facing another drift of trash. Standing rigidly straight and avoiding turning around, he quickly tried to move on to his reason for being there. “So, Rei, I brought some handouts from class for you. Uh, should I put them down somewhere?”</p><p>Rei stared at his back, then responded, “You can leave it on my desk.”</p><p>Shinji started to look around for the desk, but then caught himself. “Uh, Rei, could you put some clothes on so I can turn around?”</p><p>In what seemed to take an agonizingly long time to Shinji, Rei complied. Shinji, near-terminally embarrassed, shuffled the papers off and made a hasty exit once he could find the desk without getting an eyeful. As he left, the image of the half-destroyed building gave him an idea.</p><p>…</p><p>Finding himself yet again in Misato’s apartment making dinner, he finally broached the subject. “Misato, you wanted me to move into one of your spare rooms, right?”</p><p>“Yeah, and you begged off. You ready to move in with ol’ Misato?” she replied jovially, already several beers in.</p><p>“Uh, actually, I was thinking about Rei. I was at her place today, and…”</p><p>Shinji was cut off by Misato’s lighthearted mockery, “Ooh, visiting a girl, are we. What a ladies man! Tell me mooore.”</p><p>“N-no, nothing like that,” Shinji manages to break back in, “it’s just, the place she’s living in, it’s been totally trashed.” Worse even than here he carefully did not add. “I was thinking that maybe we could have her move in with you. That way, you’d, uh, have company like you said, and she’d have somewhere a bit nicer to live.”</p><p>“Omigod, such a gentleman!” And Shinji once again found himself smothered in Misato’s sloppy embrace. “What a great idea! I’ll see what I can do about that. I just got some news at work today, too, so this might be for the better.”</p><p>“What news is that?” Shinji asked wearily.</p><p>Misato grinned. “It’s a seeecret. I’ll be taking you on a little trip in a couple days, that’ll answer all your questions. Maybe we can bring little Rei along as well”, she cackled.</p><p>…</p><p>Authors note: Reposted from fanfiction.net. This concludes the reposted section; all new chapters will be uploaded to both sites simultaneously (and yes, a new one is in progress).</p>
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